


Go Home

by ceywoozle



Series: How The Light Gets In [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Episode: s01e05 Small Worlds, First Time, I'm so sorry, M/M, Post-Episode: s01e04 Cyberwoman, Pre-Slash, References to Suicide, Slash, Terrible Metaphors, but it gets better?, but there's a mostly happy ending okay?, descriptions of blood/gore, dub con snogging due to drunkenness, every time i try to fix the tags i just fuck them up even more, excessive introspection, i don't like either of them so it's hard to tell but the bashing isn't intended sorry, i should not be permitted to promote my own works, possibly gwen bashing, possibly owen bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-05-13 12:09:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 66
Words: 114,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5707552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Go home,” Jack says. His voice is quiet, but there’s an underlying rage beneath the exhaustion.</p><p>“I’m not finished.”</p><p>“I don’t want you here when the others come back.”</p><p>Blinking at the floor, Ianto looks at the watch on his wrist but at some point it’s stopped working, the glass casing cracked and the hands frozen at ten past twelve.</p><p>“Go home,” Jack says again.</p><p>Ianto blinks again at the floor, at the stains beneath his fingers that he knows will never come out, that have soaked in too deeply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday Night - Ianto

It's the smell that does it, of hot metal and seared blood, the shit and stink of death, of things dying and gutted and discarded. Ianto can taste it, a solidified presence in the room, heavier and more insistent than the four people at his back, the acrid reek of gun powder an afterthought as the warmth of blood pools below his knees.

It's the smell, it pushes him backwards until the place he's been avoiding, that last barely held line of defence sifts away like a wall of sand, shockingly insubstantial. There are screams in his head and he can't tell anymore if they're his. The buzz of saws and the shriek of engines and the thundering boom of marching steel soldiers never quite enough to block out the screams of the people.

He counts them off, can hear them still, can name each and every one. Adam and Ayesha and Said and Chaz. That blistering one, like the whine of a cat being tortured, is Meaghan, going on longer than the others and to this day Ianto wonders what they had done to her, to make her make that sound.

He can smell fires and he doesn't know where they come from. He is screaming and it's meant to be words, meant to be _Lisa! Lisa!_ but the syllables are lost even to his own ears, the panic taking over when the lasers start and Axel running ahead of him suddenly falls with a silent open-mouthed scream and Ianto hears the shrill urgent voice of the thing he would have laughed at in any other circumstance, a cone-like thing with paint-roller arms, almost comical in its earnestness.

He would have died then. He should have died then. But behind him the stomp of steel came louder and the monster ahead of him forgets him for the monster behind. He remembers tripping on a dead arm outflung, hitting the floor with something like relief that soon it would be over, soon he would be dead too. Axel was warm and Ianto can smell him, a smell he will never forget. There are nights when Ianto wakes up in the cold concrete prison of the Hub, the aftershave Axel had always used far too much of mingling with the reek of his charred flesh, as poignant and present in Ianto’s nostrils as the stench of his own sweat.

He had been conscious through the whole thing, lying in the blasted corridor beside Axel’s cooling body and pretending to be dead, terror overriding any guilt he might have felt as the world ended around him and he did nothing, could do nothing. He had wished with everything he was that he was dead, a dull sort of envy for Axel who was at least silent, who had left this horror behind. Ianto had huddled behind the corpse of this man he hadn't really even liked, whose aftershave had led to more than one passive aggressive sniping war in the too-small kitchenette, and wept without realising, unmoving until the roar of engines and whirring things had dissipated and all that was left was the moans as everything he knew bled out and burned around him.

He found her then, still on the same floor where she had worked. He had stumbled down the stairs around ruined casings of steel, whimpering like a dog, finding her among the corpses and the half-converted. She wasn't the only one left alive, but Ianto couldn't focus. Couldn't register the writhing mass of steel-covered limbs, the metal voices begging for release, metal arms grasping at him as he passed. He found her, one of the ones who were silent, and he held her and shook while her pulse fluttered in her neck and her eyes, Lisa's eyes, found him and held.

It took him a long time to recognise the sound of gunfire from not so far away, of the moans and screams abruptly cutting away. Of human voices and human guns doing a job. “Please,” she had said, in the same voice she used when he had teased her just a little too long in bed. “Ianto. Please. I don’t want to die.”

He took her. He dragged her, with everything left in him, and he took her away. To this day he doesn't know how. Doesn’t remember. He has flashes of memory, of organs slippery beneath his feet, of blood and shit, the evacuations of the human body dull among the metal, and he remembers thinking, absurdly, that he would never get it all out of his suit and that his shoes had been new and had cost him an entire week’s pay, and thinking back he will be haunted by those thoughts. Of the smallness of him, of the smallness of the mind that must have spawned them. For weeks afterwards he had stared at his hands and had been angry at all the people whose blood had left them so filthy that a week’s worth of scrubbing still couldn’t remove the smell of their deaths.

He remembers hiding, of days in cold basements, houses abandoned by the dead and the missing. He remembers finally being found out. Discovered on one of his scavenging trips back to the tower, searching among the debris for the things Lisa told him he would need. He had reeled, only half-pretending to be lost and confused, and they had taken him away to be checked for metal parts, and when they had proved to themselves that he was human they had taken his name and congratulated him for being one of the twenty-seven to survive and then, with a look that was half-pity and half-accusation, had told him he could go home. That he was lucky because so many others couldn’t. Ianto could see it in their eyes, the knowledge of families missing or found dead, of soldiers who had done a job and were just now waking up from the horrors of what they had found, the mercies they had had to perform. _It’s your fault,_ those eyes told him. _Torchwood did this.  
_

And Lisa. Lisa was everything. She filled him, his mind, her pleas the only thing keeping him sane, her focus the only thing he had to hold on to. _This isn’t your fault,_ she had told him when he had come back from the interrogation, empty-handed and shaking, the voices in his head just a little bit too loud. _You didn’t do this. You survived and you saved me._

Even so, there were days when she begged him for release, for the pain to stop. He would sit and talk to her on those days, rocking in his chair, wanting to touch her and not being able to because of the pain she was in. He would speak soothing words for both of them while she panted and whimpered and begged and he rocked and rocked and rocked, reminding them both of why they were doing this. And they were worth it, because there were also days when she could smile still and tell him that she loved him, and it would be her turn to speak, of all the things she remembered as if trying to prove that she was still human.

It is in the aftermath of Dr Tanizaki, of Gwen Cooper screaming in the basement, of Annie Bennett, her half-familiar face stitched and bloodied, Lisa’s memories spilling surreally from her mouth, that makes Ianto realise that that was exactly what the thing that Lisa had become was trying to do. _You know who I am. You love me. Save me._ And he had.

Ianto Jones kneels in the blood he spilled, in the ruins he made, and weeps.


	2. Tuesday Morning - Ianto

It’s Ianto who cleans the Hub. It’s always Ianto. Whatever the mess, this is his job. He starts in the central Hub, long after the others have left. There is only Jack, a silent, wrathful presence upstairs. The office door is closed but Ianto can feel the weight of his rage through the glass window. He doesn’t dare look up.

The bodies are gone, taken care of. Even Lisa’s, and Ianto knows that this too would have fallen to him except that they no longer trust him to do so. What they think he can do with her stripped and broken corpse is a mystery but he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say a word. The last words spoken among them the still-echoing accusations of _monster._

He loses track of time, pouring bleach into blood-stained concrete, wrapping wire and dragging blasted steel. He has just finished the central Hub when Jack appears, his boots and trouser legs rising into the scope of Ianto’s periphery and Ianto can feel himself freeze, every muscle tensing up and stopping.

“Go home,” Jack says. His voice is quiet, but there’s an underlying rage beneath the exhaustion.

“I’m not finished.”

“I don’t want you here when the others come back.”

Blinking at the floor, Ianto looks at the watch on his wrist but at some point it’s stopped working, the glass casing cracked and the hands frozen at ten past twelve.

“Go home,” Jack says again.

Ianto blinks again at the floor, at the stains beneath his fingers that he knows will never come out, that have soaked in too deeply. He stares at them until Jack has to speak again to get his attention.

“Ianto. Get up.”

He does. This is an order he can follow. He clambers unsteadily to his feet and nearly falls, his legs wavering uncertainly under the sudden weight and Jack’s hands grab him before he can topple, a steadying grip that holds him up until his head stops spinning and his limbs reorient themselves to the horizon.

“Go home,” Jack says again, but this time the rage isn’t there, just exhaustion and something like pity that almost makes Ianto break.

“Sir?” Ianto says, like he doesn’t understand, and part of him doesn’t. Home? This is home. This concrete cell he had bribed and bargained his way into. Where Lisa is and everything they had left together. He had promised her. He had told her he would save her. Over and over again he had said it would be okay. Except that his clothing is still stained with her blood and his hair is stiff with it, the dried flakes itching against his skin. He can smell her still, but it’s the smell of blood and overheated steel, not the vanilla and coconut he had once associated with her presence, ages ago, lifetimes.

Jack is silent and Ianto can feel his gaze but can’t make himself meet it. He stares at the middle of the other man’s chest, his hazy mind focusing on the smear of blood and wondering whose it is. It could be anyone’s.

“Okay,” Jack says, and there’s both concession and determination in the word. “Okay. Come on. Let’s get cleaned up first. Don’t want you scaring the neighbours.”

Ianto feels the tug of the hand on his arm and he gives in, following it. It pulls him downwards, into the lower levels and for a moment Ianto thinks he is being taken to that room, to Lisa’s room, where the shell of the dead machine that had saved her and destroyed her still sits in ruins, where the blood hadn’t been cleaned yet, where no one but Ianto is supposed to go, and he stops. Refusing to move when Jack’s hand on his arm becomes insistent.

“No. I’ll clean it up on my own. I don’t want you there. You shouldn’t be there,” Ianto says, and he feels Jack stiffen and Ianto can feel the hastily controlled anger soar up like a wave between them before it ebbs once again and Jack’s hand on his arm tightens, pulls again.

“I’m taking you to the showers,” Jack says, the lingering trace of anger clipping the words short. “You need to clean up.”

“No,” Ianto says, because he’s not sure he understands, but Jack pretends he didn’t hear him and when the hand on his arm becomes an arm around his back, pressing him forwards, Ianto lets it take him.

The showers are untouched, probably one of the few places in the Hub that are. They are still scrubbed and smelling of cleaner from the previous morning, eons ago, when Ianto had washed them, just another part of a routine that he suddenly realises is lost.

He abruptly steps away from Jack’s arm as soon as they enter the tiled room and with fingers suddenly frantic he grabs the shower knob and pulls, stepping under its spray as soon as it’s on. It’s a thunder, the water deafening everything else. It is freezing cold at first but Ianto drags the knob around and within seconds the spray heats and begins to steam. He stands there, fully clothed, the water soaking through and watches as the red starts to spiral away, feels the heat curl into his pores. He begins to strip the suit from himself, fingers clumsy and raw, his legs unsteady as he struggles to balance, frantically dragging his jacket and shirt away, feverishly kicking at his shoes and socks. The water gets hotter and he can feel it, pushing into him, drilling down past his skin. He can feel its burn, almost freezing, and he starts to shiver, unsure if he’s hot or cold.

There is a curse and abruptly he remembers Jack as hands grasp his arms and drag him backwards and Ianto is kicking and punching at the limbs as they wrestle him backwards and then he’s falling and he hears Jack’s grunt beneath him. He tries to roll off but he’s shaking now, aware of the rawness of his skin, the sting and burn of it against the roughness of Jack’s clothes. He shudders and his teeth are chattering and he’s freezing cold and burning hot and he tries to roll away but Jack makes a grab for him, arms and legs entangling and encasing until they’re panting together, back to front on the tile floor.

“Ianto! Damn it, listen to me,” Jack snarls against his ear. “Stop fighting me!”

Ianto does. A order that’s surprisingly easy to obey. But it’s small and right now it’s something he knows he can do.

He is still shaking and when he tries to curl in on himself Jack lets him, releasing his hold on him, and Ianto presses his face against the tile floor and swears shakily because there’s water and blood here too now, washing across the floor in swathes and leaving the grouting pink. Another mess he’s made. He pushes himself upwards, looking for a towel to clean it up.

“Ianto!” Jack again, and Ianto finds hands on his arms, dragging him upwards, feels himself being bodily moved towards the shower and he sees the curling steam and baulks but Jack holds him back, adjusting the temperature himself before he pushes Ianto firmly forward.

It stings at first, that first bright curl of pain that leaves him gasping as the water beats at the reddened skin of his back. But only for the first moment, and then he is breathing again, letting it soothe him. He closes his eyes and feels the tension in his muscles dissipate, the uncontrollable shaking slowly lessen and still, and he doesn’t realise he’s not alone until he feels the first touch on his back. He doesn’t even react to it. He stands there, unmoving, unable to move, as the smooth slide of the soap eases across his shoulders, unfamiliar hands circling and kneading into his skin. Neither of them speak, but when Jack tugs at his arms or his legs, turning Ianto around for access, Ianto lets him. When Jack’s hand, lathered and firm, reaches between Ianto’s legs, Ianto simply widens his stance and lets it happen. Watches with detached curiosity while deft fingers make him clean. There is nothing sexual in it and neither of them react to it. The touch is impersonal, if gentle. A job that needs to be done. A duty performed. And when Ianto is clean, when the last of the blood has been washed away, it’s Jack who turns off the water and guides him out of the shower. There is a towel there and Ianto doesn’t remember bringing it in. It’s only when Jack starts to pat him dry that Ianto feels something wake up, some fog slip away. He blinks and frowns, puts a hand up to stop him. “It’s fine,” Ianto says, reaching for the towel, and without a word Jack lets him take it and turns away.

Ianto dries himself with his back to Jack, though he can feel the scrutiny of the other man in the confined space. He hasn’t got a spare suit but there is a pair of joggers and a jumper he’s never seen before laid out. He hesitates, uncertain if they’re meant for him, and hears Jack’s voice, subdued and exhausted sounding, “Sorry, not up to your usual standard, I know.”

Ianto just nods. “Thank you,” he tries to say but the words are blocked up in his throat. For the first time since Lisa fell, hours before, he is crying again and it’s over a pair of trackies and he hates himself for it.

Jack is mercifully silent as Ianto dresses himself, his limbs loose and oddly difficult to control. There is a pair of socks there as well and he slumps onto the bench to pull them on, fingers tired and clumsy, and when he’s done he just sits there, unsure of what to do next. He looks at the mess around him, pinkened water settled in puddles, his ruined clothing in a sopping heap in the corner of the shower, Jack’s strewn carelessly on the floor nearby. He bends to pick up the braces, their red the brightest thing in the room.

“Leave it,” Jack says.

“I should do it.”

“Leave it.” An order this time, and Ianto stops.

“Come on,” Jack says. “I’ll drive you home.”

“I’m fine,” Ianto says, but Jack’s already walked away.

*****

The block of flats is squat and unremarkable. The black SUV, idling at the pavement is intrusive with its newness and obvious wealth.

“You okay getting in?” Jack asks.

Ianto sits there, staring at the building, barely familiar. He hasn’t been here in weeks, the last time was to hand the keys over to the landlord after his eight week rental agreement had expired. He had never moved in, had never had to. Lisa was the only thing he had had. Lisa and the things keeping her alive. Everything else had been lost and left behind and Ianto, after signing the short term lease for the sake of the address, something to put on his CV, had never even gone inside. Someone else lives there now. Ianto has no idea who.

“Yeah, fine,” Ianto says. He hugs the jumper closer to his body.

Jack doesn’t say anything, but reaches over and Ianto looks down. His wallet, the leather stained with water, is being held out to him.

“Thanks,” Ianto says and takes it. He opens the door without another word, slips out onto the pavement, the cold seeping through the cotton of the socks.

“I’ll be by tomorrow,” Jack calls out, just before Ianto shuts the door. “We need to talk. I reckon we all need some breathing room. Give it four weeks. See where we are.”

“Yep,” Ianto says, non-committally. “See you.” He shuts the door before Jack can say anything else and slowly, aware of being watched, he makes his way to the front door.

It doesn’t even occur to him that he doesn’t have any keys until he’s reached it, and by that time Jack’s realised it too and Ianto can hear the slam of the car door, Jack calling out.

Ianto doesn’t turn around, is hoping for a miracle, and for the first time he gets it; the door opens and a woman comes out. She doesn’t even glance at him when he grabs the door before it can close and slips into the warmth of the foyer. He doesn’t hesitate, makes for the stairs, climbs past the first landing and the moment he’s out of sight of the street he stops and abruptly sits down, waiting.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there. It can’t be long. No one else comes across him, but how long can Jack sit in a car and wait for nothing? He gives it another five minutes, counting it out in seconds beneath his breath, before he finally stands and walks back down stairs.

He breathes a sigh of relief. The SUV is gone. When he slips out the front door again he looks around carefully, just in case, but the street is deserted. So Ianto walks, his feet already numbing from the cold of the concrete. He has no idea where to go.


	3. Tuesday Morning - Jack

The first thing Jack does when Ianto disappears inside the building is pull out his phone. He stands on the pavement outside the ugly block and stares at the glass door, listening to the ring tone, watching Ianto Jones stumble up the stairs.

_“Jack. Is everything okay? Is Ianto—”_

Tosh. His beautiful Tosh.

“Yeah. Just took him home. Listen, take a few days.”

There is silence on the other end of the line.

“Tosh?”

_“Jack. Are you sure? The Hub…”_

“Things are quiet. Just stay close to your phone just in case. Take till Thursday.”

_“That’s two days.”_

“Consider it a weekend.”

_“It’s not, though.”_

“Enjoy your rest, Toshiko. You earned it.”

_“Jack—”_

He hangs up before he can hear what she’s going to say. Doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t know what he wants to hear. He stares at the mobile in his hand and tries to remember who’s left.

Owen picks up after five rings and his voice, when it comes on, is bleary with sleep.

_“This better be good.”_

“Good morning to you, too.”

_“Have you executed him yet? This better not be a clean up call ‘cos I’m not helping. Dump him in the bay and let the fucker rot.”_

Jack grits his teeth. “Thanks for your sympathy, Owen.”

_“I don’t know what else you thought you’d hear. He brought that thing inside the Hub. The fucking tea boy, Jack. What the hell. If you’re going to be squeamish I can shoot him for you.”_

“Take some time off, Owen.”

A squeal of outrage. _“You’re suspending me? After what he did?”_

“I’m not suspending you, I’m asking you. All of you. We all need some space to figure this out right now. I’m telling you to take it. Give it till Thursday. Things should be quiet but stay close to the phone just in case.”

Owen gives a snort. _“Yeah, right. Whatever.”_ And the line goes dead.

Jack pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it for a second. There are times when what Owen has become frightens him. When what they’ve all become frightens him. What warmth and compassion the doctor had possessed died with his wife on the operating table, and part of the reason Jack had recruited him was for that warmth, for that determination and care. It’s gone now, or at least very well hidden, and Jack has no idea who’s to blame for that. Knows by now that it’s never actually that simple anyway. And at that thought he dials the last number, and waits for the three rings before Gwen’s voice floats across the line towards him.

 _“Hello?”_ The word surprisingly tentative.

“Gwen. How are you?”

 _“Fine.”_ A pause then a hollow laugh. _“No. Terrified. Not fine. Bloody shaking. Jesus, Jack, what was that thing?”_

Jack sighs and rolls his eyes towards the sky where the sun has finally slipped up past the rim of the city. It’s cloudless, so unusual a sight that Jack lets his eyes linger too long till the brightness makes him blind and he blinks at the whiteness behind his eyes.

“It’s called a Cyberman. Or...well...sort of. An incomplete version of one.”

_“Were those the ones in London? In that building?"  
_

“Yeah.”

_“What was Ianto thinking?”_

“I don’t think he was.”

She snorts and for an uncomfortable second she sounds just like Owen. _“You don’t say,”_ she bites out.

“Anyway. I just wanted to check up, make sure you’ve got Rhys there, that you’re okay.”

There’s another silence, longer this time. _“I didn’t tell him, Jack.”_

“I know.”

_“You told me not to.”_

More silence and Jack can’t quite interpret this one.

_“He had to go to work, anyway. So. I’m by myself.”_

The invitation is clear and for a brief second Jack shuts his eyes and considers it. Imagines it. Wants it, because that’s what he does. The intimacy of sex as comforting for him as a hug is for the woman he’s talking to. He loves Gwen, in the brief time he’s known her, understands his own impulsive nature enough to understand that. He loves her, but he knows that it will never be in the way she wants, and that sex between them, however much he’d enjoy it for the warmth, the security, the comfort, as familiar as home, as necessary as air, it would do nothing but destroy Gwen.

Not for the first time, he curses the 21st century and its outdated codes of conduct, the infrequency with which they touch and accept touch. It’s all so loaded, so filled with promise and intent, and Jack feels an ache when he thinks of how long it took him to realise that, to readjust his own behaviours. He misses the Boeshane Peninsula as it was, before the raiders, before everything was stolen. He misses the easy communication and comfort that a kiss could bring, that a hand in the right place could give. Touch was the hardest language he’s ever had to unlearn.

_“Jack?”_

He’s been silent for too long. He lets go of the breath he was holding.

“I’m here. You’ll be fine. Call Rhys. Tell him something. You don’t have to keep everything secret. Tell him we’re anti-terrorism or something.” He laughs. “It’s not completely a lie. I have to go. Listen, I just wanted to tell you you don’t need to come in.”

There is a sharp inhale from the other end of the line. _“Am I in trouble?”_

“No. Why would you be in trouble? No, I just mean take some time. I told everyone the same. Come back on Thursday. The Rift should stay quiet, but stick close to your phone in case I need you.”

_“What about Ianto?”_

“He’s at home.”

 _“I mean, is he coming back? I don’t know if I can do this. If I can’t trust him? That thing in the basement, Jack. It almost got me. He nearly killed me.”_ Her voice breaks, the fear pushing through, and he hears the sharp shuddering breath she takes, forcing herself to control it.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Gwen. Call Rhys. I’ll phone if I need you.”

_“What if I need something?”_

He bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut. “You should call Rhys,” he repeats. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

 _“Okay,”_ she says, and her voice is filled with understanding and Jack breathes a sigh of relief. This is why she’s here. Because she does understand. Because this is what she’s good at. These things he and the others have forgot.

“Okay,” he says. “See you Thursday.”

 _“See you Thursday, Jack.”_ And there is that regret in the syllable of his name, that promise, and Jack hangs up before its echo, an ache, an empty need for comfort, completely dies away.

He holds onto his phone for a second longer, staring at the building into which Ianto’s disappeared. He considers going in, but he knows that what they all need right now is distance. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would come back, make sure Ianto was alright. And begin to find out how he managed to miss this, the utter enormity of this break in one of his people, the extent to which their world was shattered without anyone even noticing until it was too late.

He gets into the SUV and shuts his eyes, wishing he knew how he’d contrived to fail Ianto Jones on such an enormous scale. He starts the engine, its sound familiar, the vibration of its engine a comfort, the only one he can get right now. He doesn’t see the flicker of movement on the stairwell as he drives away. Doesn’t see Ianto peering around the corner to make sure he’s gone. He drives until he’s at the Hub, until the lift judders to a stop at the bottom and he looks around at what for so long has been his home. This has never been a safe place, but somehow he’d let it become that. He takes in the neatly coiled wires, ready to be reconnected and repaired, the dented metal that needs to be discarded. His eyes settle on the bottles and the buckets and the sponges still sitting where Ianto had left them before Jack had pulled him away.

Jack goes to them and looks at them for several minutes before he finally bends down and with steady hands picks them up. There’s work to do. So much blood still to scrub away.


	4. Tuesday Afternoon - Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i promise things will actually start to happen in the next chapter.

Jack tries not to think. His hands are pink and raw, from the hot water but also the blood, watered down and washing over his skin, into his clothes, until he is itching everywhere. He's used to this, though. Has become good at cleaning up blood over the years, his own and others. Especially his own.

It's exhausting, back-breaking work, however, and it's been a long time since Jack's had to do this. He's forgotten the numbing quality of this job. Not since he's hired Ianto Jones has he had to get onto his knees and scrub up someone else's mess, or even his own mess.

By the third straight hour he's become light-headed and dazed and he can feel his mind beginning to float away, detaching itself from the stains and the smell. It's such a familiar smell, life and the end of life, cloying and thick. Jack wonders sometimes if he'll spend his whole never-ending life breathing it in.

By the sixth hour he's in pain, a numbing ache that leaves his body cold. The fumes of the harsh cleaners are getting to him and he thinks he can feel the slow rot of brain tissue inside his own head, the burning flesh of his throat and at the back of his nose. He feels it sear away and knit back together, an unending cycle, his body repairing itself even as it falls apart. He wonders how Ianto does this and realises for the first time he really doesn't know. Has never noticed. Has become so used to walking away from the disasters they create that the person responsible for fixing them has become just as invisible and forgotten as the mess itself.

He stops suddenly, his red fingers clutched around the brush, the smell of bleach and blood and metal, the lingering stench of fear and pain and despair a physical presence around him, and wonders when this happened. At what point he had stopped seeing Ianto at all, except for when he needed something done. A cup of coffee, a file, a quick flirt. So used to his silent presence anticipating every order, fulfilling every request and expectation until the silence had overcome everything else, until his presence had been lost. Ianto Jones. The man who never complained. Who never revealed anything beyond an easy competence. Who had come into the Hub and quietly taken it over with not a single one of them being any the wiser. Jack has no idea how this has happened. How he could have missed so much.

"Damn it."

He sits back on his heels and looks around. He's nearly done. The stains will never completely come out but the heavy cloying quality of blood has at least been eradicated from the air. He breathes in and smells nothing but chemicals and wet concrete. The room—Lisa's room, Ianto's room—is overly large without the presence of the conversion unit, without the screens and the wires and the blades. Jack had been shocked at just how much had been here, just how far this deception had gone. There were links into the CCTV, boxes of medication and painkillers, drugs Jack's never even heard of, combinations of things he's never considered. He can feel the rage start to boil again when he thinks of Torchwood paying for all this. For some reason the misappropriation of funds angers him even more than the initial betrayal and crouched on the floor amidst the last of the bloodied water, still waiting to be washed away, Jack suddenly screams, a gut-clenching scream of raw rage that leaves him breathless and his throat torn. He heaves the scrub brush across the room and it claps against the concrete wall before tumbling pointlessly to the floor. He stares at it, panting, wishing that it had made him feel better.

He realises, crouched there, that he's going to have to Retcon Ianto Jones. That or execute. He can understand Lisa. He can only imagine if it had been the Doctor. Rose. And he knows that had it been, if he'd been Ianto in that place and found bloodied blonde hair and terrifyingly familiar eyes staring up at him, begging for help, he would have done the exact same thing. He would have lied and bargained and bribed and done anything in his power to save them. He thinks of Lisa, of her too-human face, of flesh that Ianto would have remembered touching, and he understands. The rage at that betrayal is gone, as quickly as it had come up when he had first realised what was happening, when he had first seen that conversion unit and remembered the battle and had seen, weeks later, Rose's name on the list of the dead. He remembers Torchwood One and the feeling of hatred that had come up in him, sickening and stifling until all he'd wanted to do was punish Ianto for making him remember, for making him realise that one of the monsters that had caused it had actually gotten out when Rose Tyler was dead. In that moment he hadn't been sure who he hated more: the Cybermen or Ianto, that last surviving link to Torchwood One, the last of the people who had made it happen, someone Jack could finally,  _finally_ blame.

He knows, not so long ago, in his long long life, he had done so much worse. Both because he didn't care and because he didn't know. He thinks of the first time he had met the Doctor and Rose, how even in the middle of wartime it suddenly mattered that some of the horrors that were happening were because of him. For the first time ever he had been prepared to sacrifice himself and he was both annoyed and intrigued by these two people who had suddenly dropped into his life and made him want to do it. He had become something better. For those few days before death had come, before the Daleks and the Games, he had been a good man. And then he'd come back and he didn't think he could be bothered any more. He had seen where sacrifice brought you and it was nowhere he wanted to be, stuck on an abandoned satellite and surrounded by the dead. He has done so much worse in the lifetimes he has had. Has cared so little. How can he hate someone else for having cared too much?

And it  _is_ gone now. The hatred. So fleeting after all, though he knows a hundred years ago, fifty years, it wouldn't have been such an easy thing to exorcise. He can't blame Ianto, not when he would have done the same. When he has done worse. But the fact remains and will continue to remain, there is nothing he can do now except give Ianto the mercy Ianto himself hadn't been able to bestow. The mercy he himself hadn't been given. A bullet or a pill. He can't decide which would be kinder.

He finishes up, dragging away the supplies, sealing the door. He makes sure the drains are open then floods the room, washing the last stains from the walls and the floor.

When he finally has everything put away, when the smell of death has been eradicated leaving nothing behind but the scars on the walls, Jack finally goes upstairs. He doesn't think he'll ever sleep again. He wonders if he has finally left his humanity so far behind that he's become something else. He wishes it were that easy. When he falls into his hole-in-the-ground, that last safe place in the world, he closes his eyes and in seconds he is asleep. He dreams of the Doctor encased in steel. He dreams of blood that isn't his own.


	5. Wednesday Morning - Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lied, another chapter of nothing happening. sorry.
> 
> also, minor trigger for suicidal thoughts in this chapter possibly? it's jack so it's sort of hard to tell.

Jack wakes up to silence. For a moment he isn't sure where he is. There is light above him, a round hole in the ceiling where the sepia bleeds through and he wonders if he's in 1941 again, deep in a bunker, the cinders of the city smouldering above.

This isn't the first time this has happened. It's one of the reasons he hates to sleep, because the waking up is always so difficult. Too much past, too many places he's woken up in, both from sleep and death. It gets tangled up if he's not paying attention.

An alarm sounds then and it's all he needs. The Hub. Cardiff. Wales. Earth. 21st century. Ianto Jones. Lisa.

“Hello? Jack?”

Gwen.

He stays silent, regretting that he didn't close the hatch in the floor. Still, she may not come into his office. She may not notice the giant hole in the floor behind his desk.

“Ja-ack?”

Closer now. He closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep. Hopes that she'll just go away. He doesn't have the energy right now or the willpower. Another reason he hates sleeping: he always fucking wakes up again. He wonders what would happen if he found a black hole and simply let himself be swallowed. A never-ending darkness, true, but without the threat of the glass, of being dragged back, of having to wake up and keep going _again._ It's almost worth it.

“Jack?” And she's right above him. He hears the soft inhalation of surprise as she spots him and he wishes again he had closed the hatch. But it gets so dark in here, so close. It's like being in a grave and he both hates and loves that feeling. The illusion of safety and sleep.

He lays there, completely still. He can feel Gwen watching him, can feel the hunger in her eyes from here. He wonders what would happen if he opened his eyes. If he just gave in and let it happen. Extend the invitation she's waiting for, half-demanding. It would be so easy. Such a relief.

And there's a sigh and then she leaves. He can feel her go, feels the withdrawal of attention like a shroud and he opens his eyes and stares at the empty space above him as the alarm on the cog door sounds again and he's alone. The silence comes back and he wonders what time it is.

He grapples for his watch chain beside the bed before he remembers falling into bed still dressed. He drags it out of his pocket with clumsy fingers and angles it towards the dim light from above. It's nearly ten in the morning. He can't remember when he's ever slept that late or that long. He pulls himself up and though his body feels tired, all the aches are gone, the rawness of his hands, his throat, the jarring discomfort from being on his knees for so long, have all vanished over night. There's something to be said for immortality.

He strips where he is, shedding yesterdays clothes, torn and stained, and after a moment's further thought strips the bedding as well. He kicks it into a corner in a heap before he remembers Ianto won't be there to pick it up. He stares at it for a second, blinking at it almost in surprise, before he leaves it there anyway and climbs up the ladder to the floor above.

Jack has no problems being naked. He knows Tosh and Ianto both check the CCTV every time they come in, and it's always amused him, knowing what they'll find in the small hours of the morning, Jack wandering bare-skinned to the showers and back. He would never do it while they were actually here, but the exhibitionist in him takes a wicked delight in watching Tosh's work station in the morning for the moment when she finds the footage. Every day she never fails to blush, and every day she rolls her eyes and sends him a deprecating glance through the office window where she knows he's watching her. It's become a routine for them, something as regular and reassuring as the first cup of coffee.

Ianto, of course, never gave anything away. From the very first Jack had been intrigued by the stone-faced stoicism, the quiet air of easy competence he seemed to carry around him like a second skin, as much a uniform as those stiff and proper suits. But whatever fascination Ianto Jones held for him, it was clear Ianto wasn't prepared to return it. Jack had a strict sense of honour in these games, and apart from the idle flirtation he practised with everyone, he was careful to never push Ianto too far. He thought about it occasionally, wondering what it would take to crack that facade of invulnerability, but it had been idle thoughts, kept carefully dampened in his presence.

Incredible the difference a few days could make. Jack snorted to himself, no idea what he was feeling. The intensity of the emotion that had spilled out of the Ianto that night, the rage flaring, the fear, the despair. Jack had seen it, had smelled it. Had mostly ignored it then, yes, or at least had been unconcerned by it except for where it effected himself. But now, with the aftershocks of that night slowly beginning to still, he considers it again and is both frightened and aroused by what he remembers. Strong emotion will always do that to him. Passion is passion, wherever it happens to be aimed, and there's something intensely attractive about someone capable of feeling so strongly. There are depths to Ianto Jones, a darkness, and Jack wonders what it would be like to stand in the focus of it for more than just a few minutes of misdirected rage. He thinks of Lisa and wonders how she survived it, how she had managed to tame it. Surely it had been impossible to live in the centre of that. To live each day aware of the tempest waiting just over the edge of the horizon, hidden until you've already steered straight into its centre.

The showers are a mess. He'd forgotten about them yesterday in his cleaning frenzy and the clothes left behind by both himself and Ianto are where they were the night before. He ignores them, though the faint smell of copper is chemical on the air, the last traces of blood making him wrinkle his nose in distaste. He nudges the crusted heap of Ianto's ruined suit further into the corner with his foot, then turns on the shower. He stands under its spray and can feel the hot water strip him down. He lathers himself three times before he feels that he's clean.

He steps out only when the room is in a shroud of steam. He looks around for a towel and realises he's forgotten to bring one, but the one Ianto had used the night before is sitting on the bench, folded neatly over the wooden slats. After only a moment of hesitation Jack takes it, stares at it in his hands. He can smell the other man on it, or possibly he only imagines he can. He presses his face into it and tries to pick apart the scent, dividing Ianto into his component parts. He wonders if he digs deep enough, makes the pieces small enough, if he'll be able to find all the things that Lisa saw, all the things that he had missed.

He dries himself slowly and ends up taking the towel with him. He's not sure why he bothers. He wraps it around his waist and thinks about how surprised Tosh will be to find his return journey unaccented by further displays of gratuitous nudity. Clambering back into his hole, he dresses slowly but carelessly, only half paying attention to the pieces he puts together. He drags his coat on last, mercifully untouched, and climbs back to his office where he looks at the two objects sitting on his desk. One is his gun, the other is the box where the Retcon is kept. He looks at them both and wonders if he can really do it. He had been so sure last night, on his knees in the blood. He'd been so certain.

But now, as constant as the light of the Hub is, it's morning. He can feel it. Has always been able to feel it. The world sending the darkness into bay for at least a little while.

In the end he leaves the Retcon but he picks up the gun. _Just in case,_ he thinks, adjusting its weight around his waist. _And at the very least, I can always let him shoot me._


	6. Wednesday Noon - Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, minor references to suicide for this chapter.

Ianto's flat block is quiet. Nearly noon and most everyone is where they're meant to be for the day. Jack is carrying two cups of coffee and clumsily clutched between two fingers is a bag of pastries from the bakery on the corner. It had occurred to Jack, standing in front of the glass case with its rolls and croissants laid out on appetising display, that he had no idea what Ianto liked. He had texted Tosh as the most likely to have noticed and had gotten her answer within seconds of pressing send:

> _I don't know. I'm sorry. I never noticed._

Fully punctuated and capitalised. These things had expressed her regret more than the actual words ever could.

Too late to wonder now, Jack shifts his weight in front of the glass doors of the ugly brick building and feels oddly nervous. He wonders if this is how dates are supposed to feel then wonders where the hell that thought had come from. He is conscious of remembering how it had felt to kiss Ianto, forcing life between cold lips, those brief seconds when they had no longer been cold and he had sworn Ianto had responded, before reality, of what they both were, where they were, had clattered swiftly down around them, the cocooned silence breaking in shards and the thunder of things dying coming back. But this isn't a date and Ianto—stupid, impossible, stubborn, _lying_ Ianto—had pushed him away. He wonders if that hadn't hurt most of all and something like his old anger starts to kindle again. He feels the weight of the gun at his waist and considers the wisdom of bringing it here.

Behind him, someone clears a throat. Jack spins, startled.

"You mind, mate?" the woman says, annoyed and impatient. She's holding a sack of groceries in one hand, her keys in the other.

"No. Sorry," Jack says, and flashes her his most charming smile.

The woman glares sourly back. "I'd like to get in, if that's not too much to ask."

Jack stares at her for a blank second before he realises he's standing in the way. "Oh. Sure. I'm here to visit a friend. Ianto Jones?"

He says it to disarm her, to secure a passage through those impossible glass doors, but the woman doesn't even acknowledge him. She unlocks the front door and disappears down the corridor to the right and doesn't even acknowledge it when Jack follows her through.

Ianto's flat is a second floor unit and Jack trudges up four flights of stairs, attempting to ignore the coffee that's spilled from one of the cups and is now slowly creeping down his wrist. He can feel it when it reaches his sleeve and the material immediately soaks through and clings to his skin, cold and unpleasant. He's already annoyed and he hasn't even reached the flat yet.

When he gets to the right number he looks around for somewhere to put things down and sees nowhere, so he kicks the door instead. Gently because he doesn't want to frighten the man on the other side, but he winces because it's not entirely possible to non-threateningly kick a door. When there's no response, he kicks again, a little harder this time, and is aware of that fact that he sounds like an invading force and at any second a neighbour could emerge and demand to know his intentions.

"Ianto!" he calls out. "Ianto Jones!"

He leans his mouth closer to the seam when there's no immediate answer.

"I've got coffee. Come on, Ianto, my hands are burning here. A little mercy?"

He realises his words just a second too late and winces. _Wonderful, Jack._

"Ianto? Please?"

The silence stretches on and Jack sighs. Ianto could be out. Could be at the shops. Sitting in a cafe. Jack could have passed him unnoticed on his way here. He could be out for a walk, trying to clear his head. He could be sleeping. He could be anywhere. He could be behind these doors, floating in blood and water. Lying amidst vomit and empty pill bottles. Curled quietly next to a discharged gun. Jack stares at the door and wills it to open, dares it to prove him wrong, but the longer the silence stretches the more he is remembering. Not the Ianto of weeks, the one he thought he knew—or at least, been content not to know—but the Ianto of the last days, hours. The Ianto who had punched him on the Plass. The Ianto who called him a monster. The Ianto who had sacrificed everything because everything he had to lose had been lost nearly four months ago in the rubble of a building that would only be remembered for the lists of its dead, and the one thing he had left had been killed by Jack the night before.

"Ianto?"

And then he hears it. A noise. The shuffle of feet and the scrape of a bolt being drawn. He can't breathe for a second from the relief and he takes a step back, aware that he's uncomfortably close to the door. It opens and a man is standing there with a child in his arms.

"Yes?" the man says. He is rumpled looking and bleary-eyed, clearly has just woken up. The small human in his arms isn't yet a toddler. It wiggles restlessly and the man bounces it wearily, trying to settle it against his side.

Jack can feel something shift, though it takes a second for him to identify what it is. It's outrage. Indignation and outrage at the sheer hypocrisy of it. But just as quickly as it comes it falls away because this is wrong. The things he doesn't know about Ianto Jones can fill several books, but one thing he can be certain of is this is not Ianto's...whatever. Lover? Boyfriend? Jack hates those words. Has always hated them.

"Sorry," Jack says when he's aware that his surprised silence has gone on too long. "I'm looking for Ianto Jones. Are you a friend?"

The man frowns. On his hip, the child makes a gurgling sound and swings a sapient eye onto Jack, making him look quickly away. He doesn't particularly like children.

"I think you've got the wrong number."

"No, I'm sure it's—208, right?" Jack looks at the number on the door again, making sure he hasn't make some stupid mistake, but it's there in tarnished brass plate: 208.

"Yeah," the man confirms. "But there's no Ianto Jones. Just me and Luke. Been here three weeks. Maybe he moved? The landlord said the bloke who had it before me was a bit queer, barely even came by. The place had been empty for a while when I moved in. There was a leak and no one even noticed till it started going through the ceiling of the place downstairs. Had to pull up the floor in the kitchen. Took an extra week before I could move in. Had to stay in a hotel."

Jack stares at him, no idea what to say. He is aware of the coffees in his hands, quickly cooling, no longer burning his palms. His sleeve is wet and cold against his wrist.

"Right," he says. "Sorry to bother you." He looks at the things in his hands. "Do you want some coffee? I guess I won't be needing it any more." And he laughs, though he thinks he might be sick.

The man smiles a tired smile. "Nah. Tea for me. Thanks though. Good luck finding your friend," and without another word he closes the door and Jack listens to the clunk of the dead bolt hitting home.

Jack stares at it for a minute longer. His brain is curiously blank. He can feel it, static playing on a continuous loop and some detached part of him is standing apart and watching it happen, chin on its hand and wondering with interest what's going to happen next. It take a physical effort to drag that bit back to him, push the static away. He wrenches his body around and begins to walk back to the car and it takes all his concentration to keep himself from tripping, picking his feet up high enough not to fall. When he gets back to the SUV he realises he's no longer holding the coffees or the pastry bag but he doesn't remember putting them down.

He starts the car and pulls away, his body running on automatic, his head already halfway to the Hub. He pulls out his phone and is dialling Tosh's number before he's aware of it. It rings once before he notices what he's doing and he hangs up quickly, praying it didn't have a chance to ring through on her end. No such luck of course. Within seconds his phone is vibrating against his palm and Jack silences it with a vicious stroke. He's angry suddenly, but he doesn't know why. There is something in his throat that's making it hard to breathe.

He parks illegally, leaving the SUV on the kerb nearest the paving stone with its invisible lift. The quickest way down. He hums tunelessly under his breath as he waits for it to crawl slowly downwards and wonders if it would be quicker just to jump. After lifetimes, it finally settles on the Hub floor and Jack is striding to his office, running up jarring metal stairs, but the moment he reaches his computer he stares at it blankly and doesn't know what to do. There's too much, all at once. His brain, its edges blurred with what he is starting to suspect might be shock, is refusing to let him prioritise, and he smacks himself hard against the skull several times in case it might be possible to physically jar the sense back into it. He makes a noise, a snarl, a shout, and almost misses the sound of the alarm blaring as the cog door rolls back. For angry seconds he hopes that it's Gwen because what he needs right now is something to grab, something to fuck, something to physically ground him, a flaring, raging release that will let him just _think._ But seconds later he realises his mistake when Tosh appears. And of course it's Tosh, Jack reasons—forces himself to reason—and he looks at her standing in his doorway, breathless and flushed, fear creeping behind her eyes.

"Ianto?" she asks, just that word, and he tries to smile, his usual trademark smile, but he can feel it twist apart on his face and he looks away, not wanting her to see.

"Jack. _Tell me."_

He stares at the space between his legs and he breathes. His hands clutch at the edge of his desk, the metal biting into the pads of his palms.

_"Jack!"_

"I don't know!" he suddenly snarls, too loud, and with an audible click he clamps his teeth shut on any further words, horrified at his own outburst.

Tosh blinks, the only sign that she's startled. "Did you not find him? I thought you were going to go see him."

He breathes, the same steady rhythm he's learnt, the one he uses after he's died and his body is still searing from the pain of it and his brain is flashing brightly behind his eyes, synapses firing and neurons spinning back to life.

"I don't know," he says again and he can feel the wrestled calm settle over him, the panic grappled down and pushed aside. "I don't know where he is."

"Did you get the flat right?" Tosh asks, always practical, and he wonders if perhaps it really is that simple. Perhaps the files were wrong, an extra line where it wasn't supposed to be, a smudge of ink, a misread number, an avenue instead of a road instead of a crescent.

"I think so. Have you been there?"

"Owen dropped him off once. It was a couple of weeks ago. Brown brick building. Hold on, let me check." She vanishes back downstairs and Jack, more slowly, follows. He wants it to be this easy, begs it to be, and he walks carefully, putting off the moment when he finds out its not. At her terminal, Tosh is pulling up windows and he stands behind her, watches the personnel file of one Ianto Jones flash up onto the screen. She reads off the address and nods. "That's right," she says, and Jack feels the breath he was holding release.

"Shit," he says, and Tosh looks back at him.

"He wasn't there," she says, not even a question.

Jack shakes his head and he can feel the smile twist across his face because he can't help but be amused at how easy this had been, for Ianto to lie to them all. "Never was there, it seems," he says and he can see her face fall as the same conclusions cross her mind as had crossed his.

"Well. I guess we need to find him, then," she says and turns back to her terminal. "I'll check CCTV and see if I can track his phone. You pull up his bank statements, see if there's any activity on there that can give us some kind of clue."

"No," Jack says. "You do that. Do that first in fact. I need to check something here."

It's a mark of her concern that she doesn't even protest. She never does when it's important, he's noticed. They all might argue and second guess and demand explanations, but always Tosh, alone among them all, knew when the time had come for simply taking orders. _Except for Ianto,_ Jack thinks as he strides towards the stairs, to the endless maze of rooms and corridors of the lower levels, so forgotten and overlooked that even a Cyberman had been able to hide down there for months without any of them noticing. _Except for Ianto,_ Jack thinks. Except for Ianto.


	7. Wednesday Noon - Jack Continued

He starts at the door to Lisa's room—Ianto's room. He tries to imagine being Ianto, terrified of discovery. Months of being tied to a dying woman trapped in steel. He tries to imagine being needed and being invisible, the agency by which everyone else's lives can be made easier at the unquestioning cost of his own. Jack opens the empty concrete cage he himself had scrubbed clean and stares into the corners, as if he might have missed something, as if some vital clue could have miraculously survived the tsunami of his efforts hours before. There isn't anything, of course. No hidden doors or loose floorboards. Jack stands in the centre of the empty room and tries to imagine being Ianto.

 _Quiet,_ he thinks. _Silence._ The Hub is a constant noise around him, even here, especially here perhaps, the hum of its wires and currents a constant thrum in the walls and the floor. If he listens hard enough Jack swears he can hear the sea. _Quiet. Silence._ What must it have been like to never have these things. To be a man like Ianto, in himself utterly contained, and be surrounded by perpetual noise, perpetual demands. Lisa, the Hub. Files and maintenance, archives and repairs. Research, organisation, mission plans, mission clean ups, dead bodies to dispose of and cover for. Feeding the monsters, feeding the staff. Flirting and dry cleaning and coffee and being everywhere, doing everything, the hundred little tasks they each demanded of him at every second of the day.

Jack looks back on the evening it had happened, the hours before it had all begun, the casual destruction they had left behind before absconding to the pub to drink the day away, all of them together, the whole team. _Except Ianto,_ he thinks.

He remembers Ianto coming in as they had walked out, but he doesn't remember having looked in his direction. Doesn't remember saying a word. Simply leaving with the assumption that when they all returned the next morning all the messes they had made would be fixed.

"Damn it," he says. And because it doesn't help: "Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit," just for good measure. He turns and leaves the room, slamming the doors shut and the bolts home before the last echoes of his curse can die away.

He goes methodically from there. Most of the corridors are just that—corridors—but there are a few rooms, some of them concealing equipment and pumps, miles of wiring and endless numbers of fuse boxes. He goes through each one, not sure entirely what he's looking for, knowing it'll be obvious when he sees it.

When he comes to his first junction he looks both ways and wishes he had brought chalk, something to mark the walls, or possibly a ball of string like some modern day Theseus. It turns out to be unnecessary, however. The next door he comes to contains what he's looking for. Jack stands in the opening and looks into what is little more than a storage cupboard and stares for a long time at what's been hidden inside.

It doesn't require that much scrutiny but it's difficult to look away from this depressing little space. It makes Jack's own hole-in-the-floor seem positively luxurious. At least he has a real bed. The thin foam padding that Ianto has placed in here is barely thick enough to ward off the cold from the concrete floor it sits on, but it is immaculately neat, the stack of thick blankets tucked and squared, the single pillow perfectly rounded at its head. Aside from the bed there is a space heater and a small lamp. There are several bottles of water, a small stack of books, a torch, a wooden crate containing necessities, and at one end, almost cutting the space in half, a wheeled clothes rack with a line of immaculate grey suits.

It's pathetic. Jack stares at this tiny room, this small island of silence in Ianto Jones' life, and wishes the man himself were here so he could hit him. He is angry. Wordlessly, inexplicably angry. He can feel his breath quicken and the blocked thing in his throat reappear. He wants to burn this room to the ground. He steps outside again and shuts the door and leans on it in the empty hall with his eyes tightly shut to the cold metal and for a few precious seconds he lets the fury course full rein.

_"Jack."_

His eyes snap open and he stares at the blank grey steel of Ianto's life, inches from his face, utterly impermeable.

_"Jack? You there?"_

Tosh. He takes a steadying breath and turns on the comm unit in his ear.

"Yeah."

_"I've gotten through to Ianto's bank records. I think you should see this."_

 

* * * * *

 

Jack stares at the numbers over Tosh's shoulders and can't quite believe what he's seeing.

"How?" he gapes.

Tosh glances back at him, sensing that what Jack is asking is largely rhetorical. Nonetheless, she answers. "The usual way," she says. "By spending it all."

Jack doesn't answer but he momentarily diverts his glare to the back of her head. She ignores it and continues to stare at the statements on her screen, the broken down details of Ianto Jones' life. His home address listed as the tourist office. His home number the tourist centre. The one hundred and thirty eight pounds and fourteen pence that represent his entire life savings. The three separate credit cards all balancing each other out. Every recorded transaction and the culmination of Tosh's swift searches with their matching names leading to a dozen different drug companies, steel works, several specialisers in electrical equipment. The totals are staggering, representing more than ten thousand pounds of debt.

Tosh clears her throat. "There's a recent transaction, coming from his chequeing account. That's the account his pay cheques get deposited into." There's a short silence, then: "It's not very much, is it?" she says in a small voice.

Jack bridles. "It's standard Torchwood pay for general office support."

There's another silence then Tosh nods. "Ah."

Jack glares at the back of her head again but it's inscrutable. It's preferable to staring at the screen, however, with it's overwhelming numbers and the...yes, the considerably smaller ones that represent Ianto's monthly pay from Torchwood. Jack hates himself for it but he's more angry that Tosh is seeing it, this evidence of his personal revenge, than he is for having exacted it. He remembers when he had set that wage, the sense of righteous justification, a debt to be paid by Torchwood One by any means possible. He avoids looking at it now and realises that, like every other aspect of Ianto Jones, he had simply forgotten. He had meant to up it to more reasonable remuneration after his point had been made, after his anger had abated, but Ianto had never complained, never brought it up. Never by word or deed indicated he was anything other than content with things as they were, and as such, Jack had simply stopped thinking about it.

"Shit," he says, and it's low and vicious and Tosh flinches in front of him.

"Jack?" Her voice is tentative now and Jack knows he should feel ashamed, for putting her through this, for accepting her help, for letting her see this evidence of his failure. "Do you want to know about the transaction?"

"Will it help?" he asks bitterly.

She presses a few keys and a window pops up. It's a website. A two star hostel located ten blocks from Ianto's flat.

"I think it might," she says.

 


	8. Wednesday Afternoon - Jack

It's a dump. Jack stands on the pavement and stares up at it, nearly invisible except for its filth. There's a small shop with a broken window on one side and a derelict building on the other, windows boarded up and a padlock on the chipped door. The hostel, squeezed in between them, is hardly better off. The only sign that shows that it might be occupied is the neon flashing light beside the cracked wooden door: _Hostel._

Jack tries to imagine Ianto in this place and can't. He looks up at the small filthy windows stacked above the street and tries to swallow the bile rising up in his throat. The anger is back again, never really having abated since finding the storage cupboard in the basement. It only occurs to Jack now that every material object that Ianto possesses is back at the Hub in that small concrete space. He remembers a day and a half ago, handing Ianto his wallet in the car, barely an afterthought, the object fished out at the last minute from soaked and filthy trousers. He thinks how close Ianto had been to not even having that. What would the man have done then? Finding himself with nowhere to go, with no way to pay for it. Would he have come back to the Hub? Made a clean breast of it? Jack stares at the broken building in front of him, housing it's broken men, and can't help but think that Ianto wouldn't have, not even then. If the prospect of this place hadn't managed to jar the immaculate Ianto to his senses then nothing would.

He has to physically brace himself before he can force himself through the door. Jack has stayed in bunkers and sheds, has spent months living in the derelict ruins of destroyed worlds. He once slept through the beginning of a war, huddled under a piece of corrugated sheet metal, stinking of his own piss and the blood and shit of the man he'd made love to the day before. But somehow Ianto in this place, in this time, horrifies him more than the memory of all those places together. There are things that his team shouldn't have to endure. For all the things he can't protect them from—death, grief, pain—there are also things that he can, and places like this should be among them.

The inside of the building is no better than the outside. Past a dark and filthy hall there is an empty desk and two doors. One of them is open and peering through Jack sees what passes for the kitchen. There is a hot plate and an ancient urn with crusted stains of coffee puddled and crystallised on the worktop underneath. There is a kettle and a set of chipped dish ware and a water stained sink. In the middle of the room there's an unsteady looking table with a dozen chairs squeezed in around its perimeter. There are three people seated there and when Jack appears they all look up and he sees the hunted look in their faces, the immediate suspicion edging on fear. He can practically taste the defensive aggression in the woman. She is big-boned and broad-shouldered but her skull shows up in stark relief on her starved face and Jack offers a disarming smile before quickly ducking back out of the room.

He turns to the second door. It's locked but it's an ordinary lock requiring only an ordinary key and Jack makes quick work of it. He's aware of how much attention he draws in this place, how disparate to his surroundings. He hopes the quality of the place has put a limit on the number of guests and he's lucky because he meets no one on the creaking wooden stairs going up. The first room he comes to, with four rickety cots set up, is clearly the abode of the trio downstairs. The second room houses two stained and empty mattresses. The third room, a floor up and across from the water-stained bathroom with its perpetual smell of damp, is the one he's looking for.

He knows immediately that this is where Ianto is, even before he opens the door. Jack can _smell_ him. Not a scent he's paid attention to before, but this is Ianto stripped of all product and after a day and a half in a small closed room without a shower. Everyone always remarks on Jack's scent, but that's simply because it's so _different,_ so easily picked out from among the separate but just as potent reek of the 21st century human. But Jack can smell them, just as distinctly as they can smell him, so out of the ordinary for senses long since trained to a specific frequency. And even though he's now spent far longer on Earth than he has on Boeshane, it's a sense that's been ingrained in him, as much as his ability to see colour and light. He stands outside Ianto's door and he inhales the smell of him, salt and iron and something dry and hot like sunlight, all mixed in with the faint smell of Ianto's own particular pheromones and queerly, underlying it like a current, the almost unnoticeable tang of Jack.

For thirty seconds Jack stands outside the door and breathes Ianto in. He is searching for a clue, something to tell him what he'll find on the other side. His brain is shifting through possibilities, sorting through all the things he _doesn't_ smell. He doesn't smell blood. He doesn't smell vomit. He doesn't smell the fear and the rage that had been so pungent two nights ago when Jack had ordered him with a gun held to his head to execute the woman he loved. It is almost unnerving the things he doesn't smell. After this, Jack would have expected _something._

With a deep breath, Jack takes the handle and pushes in.


	9. Wednesday Afternoon - Ianto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg you're all going to hate me so much.

Ianto can hear him coming. He recognises the cautious step of Jack trying to be sneaky but the old wooden stairs creak at every quiet footfall and besides, Ianto can _smell_ him. It disturbs him sometimes how attuned to Jack's scent he is.

He's on his feet, pushing up from the sagging mattress with its musty smelling sheets and the stains that don't come out of them. His entire body feels as if it's been caved inwards, his skin folding in on itself to get away. The socks on his feet are filthy and torn and there is blood where he'd stepped on a stone, another spot where he'd stepped on glass, but he refuses to take them off. Walking barefoot on this floor is somehow a worse prospect than anything else, but Ianto knows he needs to start seriously thinking about leaving this place. He needs clothing, he needs food. His funds are disastrously short but there's a charity shop a few blocks over that he plans to go to as soon as he works up the courage to do so. But he is terrified of being seen, of being looked at.

He had slept fitfully the day before, waking every hour in a sweat of cold fear, the last dying images of his dreams imprinted on his brain, of an endless walk on a crowded street, a mass of humanity populated by everyone he's ever known. Axel with a look of disdain and disgust at the ragged and torn strips of his filthy clothes. Meaghan screaming, high-pitched and inhuman, piercing and manic, her eyes wide with horror as she flinches away from him from the other side of the street. Yvonne Hartman with a look of disdainful amusement, her arms crossed as she shakes her head: _"Torchwood One expects employees to maintain a professional demeanor at all times, Mr Jones. This isn't Cardiff any more."_ Gwen Cooper in her beat uniform watching him with pity and disgust, trying to take his arm without actually touching him to lead him away: _"Let's get you out of here, sweetie. You don't want people to see you like this."_ His father, all quiet disappointment, and in the subtle curl of his lip a not-quite hidden disgust: _"I told you this would happen, that you'd never have a good end. Queers like you never do."_

Worst of all was Jack, however. He stood with his arms crossed and his face distant, that same expression as the first time Ianto had reached out a hand to touch a shoulder supposedly ripped to shreds only to find the wound vanished. Distant, cold, a faint look of hostile suspicion as he pulled away. Even in his dream, as Ianto reaches up to him, Jack pulls away and the words are clearly spoken this time: _"Don't touch me. I don't even know who you are."_

Ianto hates that he dreams of Jack. Hates that he dreams of any of them. His father, that so-determinedly forgotten man, that spectre of his childhood that was nothing more than a ghost of disapproval, second-guessing everything Ianto was. Axel with his bloody aftershave, the reek of it still lingering in his nostrils every time he wakes up. Meaghan who lives in his memory now only as a scream, everything she had ever been washed away by that final breaking sound. Yvonne Hartman, cold and arrogant and terrifying in the same ways the Cybermen and the Daleks had been, that utter certainty of her own rightness, the complete inability to doubt herself. He had been frightened of her from the first and when he had read her name on the list of the dead he had felt an intense and guilty relief; just one more monster vanquished that day, a bit too late.

Gwen Cooper's presence in his dreams surprised him at first because he hardly thought of her even when she was before him. He was aware of a vague sort of hostility, half-inspired by the fact that she never, ever noticed him. But if he's honest with himself, he knows it's because he hates how easy it has been for her to get in to Torchwood Three. How instantaneously accepted she was by a group of people who nearly four months later still barely acknowledge his existence in their lives. The way she was welcomed did nothing but throw into greater relief his own failures, show him the difference between being accepted and trusted and being ignored. He hates himself for the reality of those thoughts, aware that it isn't her fault, that a great deal of the blame is his own. He had wanted to be overlooked, really. That had been the whole point. But deep down, the thought scraping at the edge of every conscious action, is the disappointment at just how easy it had been. Surely, _surely_ it should have been more difficult to disappear. He wants to take credit for the vanishing act he had pulled, but he knows, has always known, that some people simply aren't meant to be seen.

Lisa had seen him, though. From the first she had acknowledged him and he had felt in her presence that flaring relief of actually  _existing._ It had been new for him, even then. One of the reasons he suspected he'd been hired by Torchwood One in the first place was his ability to fade into the background and be forgotten, his very existence unremarked. But Lisa had seen him, had smiled at him over the first cup of coffee and had kept smiling until weeks later he'd worked up the courage to ask her out only to be forestalled by her asking him out instead. They'd laughed about that later, sitting across the table from each other in the middling restaurant she'd been able to afford ("I asked you, I get to pay.") and over the dessert she'd let him ask her out for the next time instead. They had kissed on that first date, a soft meeting of softer lips, and he'd soared the whole way home afterwards, his heart a battering and incandescent thing inside his chest. For the first time Ianto Jones had existed, had been seen. And for brief seconds, rolling in the dirt of a warehouse while a pteranodon fell to earth nearby, Jack Harkness had seen him too. It was intoxicating and oh so dangerous.

Now Ianto stands in a building that could only be improved by being burnt down and listens to the footsteps outside his door as they come to a creaking halt. He stands in the centre of the room, his feet braced between the two filthy mattresses and all his nightmares come back to him at once. He is in too large clothing that still smell like Jack, his feet torn and bloodied, his hair on end, and he wishes he could vanish for real. In the utter hell of his life, through fire and ruin and pain, through grief too long and deep that for unending months now Ianto has kept it packaged neatly in a corner of his mind, hoping that if he didn't look at it it would just go away, it is in this moment that he wishes with an intense longing that he could simply die.

And with that thought, he hates himself all over again.

He inhales and he smells Axel's aftershave. Smells the stifling, choking floral scent of Yvonne Hartman's perfume. Smells fire and blood and burning flesh and at the edge of his hearing, like a siren sweeping around a corner, Meaghan is screaming in his ear.

For the first time in his life Ianto Jones can feel the edges of his world begin to waver, and with a last angry thought— _Now Jones? Really? Because you couldn't think of any other way to make this worse?—_ he feels himself falling and the universe floats mercifully away.


	10. Wednesday Afternoon - Jack

The door sticks. Of course the goddamn door sticks.

Jack snorts in frustration and—incredibly—amusement. To have gotten to this moment and at the very last denied his dramatic entrance by a sticky door. He puts his shoulder against it and grunts when the swollen wood squeaks half an inch forward and he laughs. God help him he laughs and he can feel the hysterical edge of it gripping the sides and hanging on. He wonders what on Earth Ianto must think, trapped on the other side and listening to the insane laughter of a madman trying to break in. Jack very nearly calls to him for help but he doesn't, isn't totally convinced he'll get it, and because of it he manages to hear the muffled thud of something heavy falling onto a wooden floor. And just like that he stops laughing.

"Ianto?"

There's no answer.

_"Ianto!"_

Nothing, and Jack can't smell anything at all over his own rising panic. He puts his shoulder to the door and _heaves_ and with a final scraping creak it bursts open and he stumbles inwards and nearly falls on top of Ianto, crumpled in a heap half on top of a mattress covered in stained and filthy sheets. In the corner of Jack's mind he notes that all the sheets are squared and tucked, the flat pillow neatly lined up at the top.

"No, no no no no." He is on his knees, his hands finding all the usual places, brushing firmly over head, over neck. He searches for blood and finds none. He runs practised hands over Ianto's body, fingers sliding over limbs, searching out bones and cartilage, trying to find something wrong. Ianto's skin is hot and Jack finds the bruises that had been only hinted at the day before, fully blossomed into livid purples and blues. He is too pale, the circles under his eyes too pronounced, the vivid red spots on his cheeks too bright. Jack slaps at them lightly, fighting his own unreasoning fear. He is aware, somewhere detached from his own self, that he is overreacting. But he can't help it. He's tired and angry and however hard he tries to reason it away he feels _betrayed_ and not for the first time these last two days he wishes he could just sit back on his heels and scream. Take Ianto and shake him until something comes out, something that makes sense, something that will give away anything at all. Something solid and logical for Jack to grasp onto for both their sakes. But here they are again and for once in his life Jack wishes he wasn't always the one who had to fix everything. That someone for once would just fucking _help._

"Ianto, I swear by the Doctor I will Retcon your ass all the way to Dark Ages if you don't wake up now," he snarls, and of course that's the moment that Ianto's face contorts and with a choking cough he rolls onto his side and heaves. Jack kneels there with a hand on the side of Ianto's neck, his too hot flesh burning at the palm of his hand while this boy, this damaged, broken, _lying_ boy, vomits the empty air from his stomach.

"Fuck you, Jack," Ianto gasps, and dimly Jack is aware that this is probably the first time he's ever heard Ianto call him by his first name. He almost starts laughing again, that manic hysterical cackle from before, but he manages to choke it back at the last second.

"Fuck you too, Ianto Jones," he says and weirdly and against all reason it makes him feel marginally better. He says it again, "Fuck you too, Ianto Jones," just to make sure, and under his hand Ianto gives a convulsing sobbing laugh.

"Don't you dare start crying on me now," Jack says and his voice is shaking, a vibrating tension running through him and making him shudder uncontrollably. Ianto is limp in his grasp and Jack drags him over, rolling him onto his back on the mattress. The neat corners dislodge in the struggle and Jack takes a perverse pleasure in watching them come undone.

"Knew you'd fucking find me," Ianto says. His eyes are tightly shut. He hasn't opened them once yet to look Jack in the face and Jack resists the urge to slap him, force those eyes to open, to meet him halfway.

"Yeah well, next time maybe you should try a little harder. First goddamn rule: follow the money. Don't know why I even hired you," Jack says, and the instant the words are out he regrets them. 

There's a snort and Ianto squints up at him, red-rimmed eyes slit open and a crooked smile on his too-young face. "Neither do I. You hated me from the start, didn't you."

Jack doesn't reply because he has no idea what to say. _No, I didn't hate you. I hated who you worked for, what you were responsible for, what you didn't manage to stop. I hated that you came with that name, that legacy, and I hated that I hated you for it because I knew it was wrong but I just didn't care. I hated that I blamed you when it wasn't your fault and I hated, oh god I **hated** that you let me. Every tiny blow and dig you absorbed and never said a word. You let me forget you and I **hate hate hate**_ _that I let you do it._

He stares at that too-young face, at those too-old eyes, red and watering in a white bruised face and shakes his head. "Fuck you, Ianto Jones," Jack says but the bite is gone from the words. There's no anger left there at all.

"That's sexual harassment, sir," Ianto says and there's the beginning of a smile there before he starts to cough again, a helpless choking heave that has Jack pushing him onto his side once more, one hand on his neck and the other on his back as Ianto rolls onto his knees and heaves into the pillow between his arms.

"Fuck," he gasps when it's done and he collapses backwards, his whole body giving up at once.

"Did you take any drugs?" Jack asks and he keeps his voice level, careful not to judge.

Ianto gives him a scathing look. "No." Then a pause and his face creases in a frown. "Yes. Nurofen. Nausea. Dizzy. I haven't eaten." His eyes close again and he takes a rasping breath. "God I'm so tired."

"When's the last time you ate?"

Ianto doesn't respond right away. When he does it's a slow puzzled thought passing over his face. "Don't remember."

"Have you been able to sleep?"

"Yeah."

Jack looks at him critically, the deep bruising circles under his light eyes and wonders how much nearer that sleep had been to simple unconsciousness. He doesn't ask. He pushes himself up, moving away from the mattress. Ianto doesn't even open his eyes to watch him go.

"I'll be back," Jack says. "Stay here. If you try to run, I want you to understand that there is nowhere on this Earth that will be far enough away."

Ianto doesn't even crack an eye open. His voice, when it comes, is flat and exhausted. "Where on Earth do you think I have to go?"

 


	11. Wednesday Afternoon - Jack Continued

He's gone less than an hour but Jack is vibrating with coiled up tension. Queues and broken card readers and stupid people asking stupid questions. He had very nearly pushed an old woman out of the way when she'd started arguing about five percent off in Boots. It would have been so easy to flash his badge, throw a hundred pound note on the counter, simply  _steal,_ but he hadn't and the wait is playing on him now, the frustration catching up and making him twitch. He bundles his bags clumsily in one hand, shifting restlessly in the back of the taxi, and wonders why this is taking so long.

"Could you go a bit faster? Or you know... _around?"_ he snaps at the driver for the third time and is once again ignored. There is a queue of traffic ahead of them and a whole endless row of red lights. Jack considers just getting out and walking the rest of the way but the traffic could break at any minute. He'll give it two more minutes. Three. He counts down in his head: _one hundred and eighty, one hundred and seventy-nine, one hundred and seventy-eight, one hundred and seventy-seven, one hundred and seventy-six..._

The taxi shifts forward several car lengths and Jack tries to breathe. He doesn't understand his own impatience. He tries to remember if he'd seen the Nurofen bottle in Ianto's room. Would he try something desperate? Would his discovery lead Ianto to do something stupid? He fiercely tries to think back to the room but all he can see is Ianto and the way the bedsheets had pulled up from their corners. He realises he's lost count and he swears under his breath. He's out of patience. He digs for his wallet and slings a twenty pound note at the driver and without waiting for any kind of response he tumbles out of the taxi and into the road, slipping through the gridlocked lane and onto the pavement where he starts to run. He doesn't understand his own rising anger.

He reaches the hostel in less than ten minutes, out of breath and with a bruise forming on his leg where the bags have been bouncing on it for the last five blocks. He pushes his way through the front door and is only stopped by the sound of a voice shouting at him from the front desk.

"Oi! That's twelve pounds a night."

The gun is out of its holster and in the man's face before he's even stopped speaking. Silence falls and there's only the sound of Jack panting and the sudden smell of urine. "Open. The. Door."

"Right," says the man and pushes a key across the desk. "There you go. You go ahead now. No trouble here."

"Thank you," Jack bites out and holsters the gun. He grabs the key and it takes several seconds of wiggling it in the lock before the door opens and Jack tosses it haphazardly back at the man before bounding up the stairs. His heart is pounding far too fast and he can't think. Can't think until he reaches the second floor landing and through the open door he sees Ianto laid full out on the bed and unmoving. He's still. He's so still.

Jack freezes in the doorway and he can't make himself go in.

And then on the bed Ianto breathes, a tired inhalation and under Jack's borrowed jumper his chest rises and falls. "Back again?" Ianto says, and just like that the sudden fear is gone to be replaced by annoyance.

"You're welcome."

Ianto's eyes crack open and he lifts his head minutely to look at the man in his doorway. "I wasn't aware I had anything to thank you for."

Jack lifts an eyebrow as he feels his heart rate slowly dropping back to normal. He forces himself to breathe normally as he holds up the bags in his hand and tosses them onto the foot of the mattress. They fall across Ianto's leg but he doesn't even flinch away.

"I thought the shopping was my job, sir."

"I'll take it out of your pay," Jack snaps.

There's a moment of silence when neither of them move, and then, on the bed, Ianto starts to laugh. It's a low, hoarse sound, vibrating against his chest, and Jack watches as he closes his eyes and lets his head drop back down on the pillow.

"You think that's funny?" Jack asks.

"Yep."

Jack grits his teeth and doesn't know what he wants to do. It would be so easy. Retconning him. Shooting him. Shaking him. Hitting him. Kissing him. Pushing him down and fucking him. No one in Ianto Jones' life to complain about any one of them, not even Ianto Jones.

But in the end Jack settles for Mercy. Almost always does, if given the chance. But it's incredible how easily he slips into anger with this stranger of a man.

He moves into the room and kneels at Ianto's side and he feels a vicious pleasure when Ianto flinches back from his reaching hands.

"Relax," Jack says. "I need you to sit up."

"Fuck you."

"Later if you're lucky."

Ianto starts to laugh again, manic and raw, and Jack leans down and pulls him upwards, dragging him back till he's leaning against the cracked and marked wall and Ianto's head lolls forward on his chest, still giggling.

Jack keeps a hand pressed to his shoulder and leans over and hooks the shopping bags towards him. He pulls out the cans of soft drink and with one hand pulls the tab up on the first. He sits there impatiently while Ianto's giggles spill down his chin. His hand on Ianto's neck and Jack feels the physical force of Ianto's laughter through the muscles clenching against his palm and almost absently he strokes his thumb along his throat, as if by sheer physical effort he can stem it and make it stop. It takes too long for it to fade and when it finally does Ianto falls far too still, his head hanging, his whole body limp.

"Alright," Jacks says, and he lifts Ianto's chin, pressing his head back into the wall. Ianto frowns and he opens his eyes to glare blearily at Jack and the green can in his hand.

"Sprite?" he mumbles. "Couldn't spring for Crabbies?"

"Shut up and drink it."

Ianto lifts a hand to take the can but his grip is loose and he shakes enough that the sticky liquid spills down his chin and Jack has to steady him, one hand around the can, the other at Ianto's neck, his thumb still stroking as he feels him swallow against it. He drinks more than half the can before Jack pulls it away and Ianto gasps for air, his tongue darting against his lips to lap at the sugar that's left there.

"Okay?" Jack asks.

Ianto nods, open-mouthed and panting with his head thrown back against the wall. He opens his eyes and there's something nearly lucid in the glance he casts at Jack. "Why?"

Jack frowns, uncertain, and with an impatient sigh Ianto clarifies.

"Why are you here?"

Jack doesn't answer right away. He lifts the Sprite to Ianto's mouth and watches as the broken boy in front of him swallows desperately against his thumb.

"Why do you reckon?" he asks when he takes the empty can away and Ianto rolls his head towards Jack, pressing against the palm of his hand.

"Retcon?" Ianto hazards. He blinks his gaze away and squeezes his eyes shut. Already the sugar is working and Jack reaches for the second can, popping the tab open. Ianto takes it from him himself, his hand already almost steady. "No," Ianto murmurs, staring at the fizzing depths of the drink. "You'd've done it already." He glances towards Jack's waistband. "Gun, then. You did say you were going to execute me," and with a humourless grin, too many teeth, he brings the second can to his lips.

Jack says nothing but he looks away, using his one-handed search of the bags as his excuse. He pulls out the packet of cream crackers and tosses it onto Ianto's lap, pulling the nearly empty can from his lips. "Eat," he says. "And maybe I won't shoot you."

Ianto doesn't say anything, pulling the package apart with frantic hands and it's only when he's shoved several into his mouth at once that he peers quizzically in Jack's direction. He doesn't say anything, chewing ferociously, but he holds Jack's stare and Jack, meeting it, can't help the quirk of amusement that tugs at his traitorous lips.

It takes an age for Ianto to swallow and when he does he barely leaves room to breathe before he reaches for more. "I bloody hate cream crackers," he says as he shoves them into his mouth and Jack snorts and against his better judgement begins to laugh.

He's still laughing when the creak of the stairs makes them both look up into the face of Andy Davidson and, just ahead of him, Gwen Cooper with her gun half-raised at her side.

"Bloody hell," Gwen says.

"Told you it would be him,"  Andy mutters.

"Gwen?" Jack says, and he's aware that beside him Ianto has suddenly stiffened and when he glances over he sees Ianto Jones, wooden and distant and polite, the man who'd made their coffee every day for the last six months, who cleaned up their disasters with a smile and did everything ever asked of him without protest, and it leaves Jack slightly breathless seeing how suddenly and easily that mask has gone up. _Mercy,_ he remembers. He's being merciful today, and he stands up and walks from the room, pushing Andy and Gwen out ahead of him and shuts the door behind him as far as it'll go before it's swollen edge hits the jamb.

"What are you doing here?" he says to Gwen. He ignores Andy altogether and he can sense the man shrinking in on himself, wishing he were anywhere else.

"Running interference," Gwen snaps, and he can see her glance dart towards the closed door. "Why are you here? What's wrong with Ianto?"

_"What are you doing here Gwen?"_

Her eyes widen, startled at the tone. "Andy called. Apparently some nutter with a gun tried to hold up a hostel."

Jack keeps his face impassive but inwardly he's cursing. He didn't even think about that. He can see Gwen watching him and it occurs to him that this is exactly why he hired her, to think about those things, to avoid situations just like this.

"He was being uncooperative," he says.

"Right," Gwen says dryly. "I can see how asking for twelve pounds is grounds for pulling a firearm on a man." Her eyes are flat and dangerous and Jack can see the angry accusation wanting to come out but he doesn't let it because frankly, at this moment, he couldn't care less. He promises to himself he'll make it up to her but the only thing keeping him from pushing both her and Andy down the stairs is the knowledge of how much attention it would attract.

"Obviously you can see there's no danger," Jack says, and he forces his voice to stay light, his face pulling into a crooked smile. "I'll apologise on my way out. I won't be staying long anyway."

Gwen says nothing but she doesn't break his gaze and he forces himself to hold onto it, returning it with an edge of lazy amusement that he's fully aware infuriates people. It's Andy, finally, who steps in, clearing his throat awkwardly and putting a hand on Gwen's arm.

"Guess that's sorted, then. As soon as they mentioned the coat I knew it'd be you tossers. Come on, Cooper," and he tugs at her arm until she's forced to turn away, if only to throw him off.

"Fine," she says. "Nice to know the keeping secrets thing isn't just for me," and with a last glare at the closed door at his back she follows Andy down the stairs. Jack stands there, waiting until he hears the creaking fade away, the locked door at the bottom swing shut, before he lets himself unclench his fists and push his way back into the room. Ianto is standing in the middle of it, spine straight and shoulders back, his face a blank mask. He looks like a soldier and something in Jack's chest cracks a little, thinking of all the wars he's seen.

"Okay," he says. "We need to get out of here."

Ianto's eyes flash. "Sir?" he says, and every wall is back up, every crack and weakness swept out of sight. Jack takes a silent minute to curse Gwen and Andy for showing up when they did.

"We," Jack enunciates, and he can feel the edges of his anger creeping back up. "You and me, Ianto Jones. We are leaving this place if I have to drag you by the ankles to do it."

Jack glares at him, watching the edges of the mask begin to crumble, can see the internal argument warring behind it but the truth is Ianto is exhausted and whatever battle he's fighting with his pride is going to be short. Jack's already picking up the rest of the bags because he knows how this is going to end, with Ianto willing or not. He's not leaving him here. He's never leaving him behind again.

"So," Jack says as he straightens, and he sees the answer on the sullen lines of Ianto's face even before he asks the question. "Are you coming?"

"Fuck you, Jack," Ianto says, and Jack nods.

"That's what I thought."


	12. Wednesday Late Afternoon - Jack and Ianto

"I can't believe you got the car towed."

Jack glares at him. On the other end of the taxi's seat, Ianto shoves another cracker into his mouth.

"Is this really important right now?" Jack snaps.

"I hate taxis."

"Is there anything you don't hate?"

"They're unhygienic."

In the front seat the driver gives a snort. "Unhygienic? You're bloody lucky I even let you in here, mate."

"Ignore my friend. He got hit on the head." Jack glares at Ianto. "Hard."

Ianto takes a long swallow of Sprite and rolls his eyes and Jack resists the urge to actually hit him.

They drive in silence for a while, inching through the afternoon traffic towards the bay. There is no sound except for the crinkle of the cracker packet and the crunching as Ianto steadily inhales them. Only when he's finished, poking his fingers into the corners to get the last crumbs does Jack turn to him, grabbing the empty wrapper impatiently when Ianto shows signs of trying to fold it.

"You haven't even asked where we're going," Jack bites out, shoving the empty packing into his pocket, watching as Ianto's eyes follow it with some distress.

Ianto glares at him. "I wasn't aware I had a choice."

"You could still ask."

"I didn't see the point," he snaps and Jack watches as his shoulders start to tense.

Ianto looks away, fixing his gaze on the soft drink in his lap. Jack can practically see the processes going on inside his head, as the edges of hunger and thirst are abated, as nausea disappears and the worst of a pounding headache slowly begins to lessen.  He can see the old Ianto reappear. Not the soldier, the perfect and inscrutable tea boy of the past months, or even the starved and half-delirious creature of the last two days, but the brief glimpse of the man he remembers from that night when they'd trapped a pterodactyl in a warehouse. When they'd fallen laughing together on the floor. There was something joyous in him that night, something that, for however briefly, had simply _forgotten._ And for swift seconds, hunting dinosaurs in the dark, he had lived. Jack sees him now again—shamed, defensive, but present—and something in Jack is flooded with relief knowing that he hadn't just made him up.

"Should I tell you?" Jack asks, honestly curious now as to what Ianto will say.

"Whatever, Jack," Ianto says, his voice measured with scorn, and with a sudden fury Jack snatches at the wrist laying limp in Ianto's lap and Ianto, startled, looks up.

"Answer me, Ianto Jones. Do you want to know."

Ianto stares at him and something challenging glimpses out. "Yes," Ianto says, and Jack grins, a little bit feral and too many teeth.

"And what if I tell you 'too bad'?"

Ianto's eyes narrow and Jack can see his mind working, the sluggish thoughts trying to catch up with the present. He's running on Sprite and crackers while trying to hold on to some kind of control and Jack can see him wondering how safe it would be to let it go.

"I think I would just keep hating you," Ianto finally says, and for some reason his answer fills Jack with relief.

"Okay," Jack says. "We're going to a hotel," and before Ianto can protest: "I'm paying. And no, you don't have a choice."

"Am I permitted to ask which hotel?"

"Future's Inn."

"That's a hundred and twenty pounds a night, Jack."

And the use of his name drops like a benediction, an apology, in the seat between them. And Jack wants to say something scathing or defensive but he can't. Belatedly, far too belatedly, he realises he's still holding Ianto's wrist. He drops it like something scalding at his palm.

"It's just for now."

"I'll keep track, you know," Ianto says.

Jack snorts. "I know," and the spell is broken and they both stare out their windows as the taxi creeps on.

 

* * * * *

 

It's only a middling hotel really, not comparable to St David's with it's achingly glorious views and its afternoon teas, but it's clean and it's quiet, its hallways muffled by carpet and dim lighting. And best of all, the very best, is that it's anonymous. Utterly incongruous and without personality, and something in Ianto comes a little bit untangled as he follows Jack into the room.

"For God's sake," Ianto sighs. "You got the King's suite?"

He's mentally calculating the money this will cost, the amount he'll have to pay back. He thinks of credit cards precariously balanced against each other, of the negligible number in his chequeing account. He knows he should turn around and walk out, find another hostel, a park bench, a doorway. He should call Rhiannon, he should crawl back to the Hub, sneak into his storage cupboard and just survive. He knows he shouldn't do this, but the bed is absolutely enormous and God he's just so tired.

"Jack," he swallows, trying to find the words to refuse this, trying to dig up the willpower to say no, but Jack's already talking, throwing the shopping bags onto the sofa and pulling things out of them, each item held out for Ianto's inspection, each item a challenge.

"So," he says, and Ianto stares at him as he talks and talks and talks. "I made sure there was a bathtub. I picked up some salts for you at Boots, so make sure you soak tonight. Lay off on the Nurofen till tomorrow, but I bought a bottle of the Plus as well as the normal stuff just in case it gets bad. There's energy bars and beef jerky. Try to eat those before you bathe, it'll make you feel better. I bought that tea that you always keep at the Hub. Milk. Bottled water. There's a minibar in the room but I know you well enough to know you probably won't use it. I stopped short of buying you instant coffee since I figured you probably wouldn't forgive that, but they've got a decent restaurant here so you should survive till we've got you in front of your coffee maker again.

"There's clothes, I think I have the size right. I went with the usual boring khakis and button downs, a pair of jeans, some tshirts. I hope that's alright. A few jumpers, socks, pants. Pyjamas? I wasn't sure. Oh, and shoes, of course. A jacket, hat, scarf."

He holds up each item as he comes to it, a production line of soft wool and cotton. Ianto can't speak, doesn't even get a chance.

"I think I thought of everything, but if there's anything I've forgotten there's an envelope here with five hundred pounds cash. This is yours to spend. Books, magazines, coffee. Breakfast and dinner at the hotel restaurant are already paid for so you might as well use them. If you want it brought to your room you just have to call the front desk and let them know. If there is anything, and I mean _anything,_ you will call me. I'm pretty sure your cell phone is a lost cause, but I'll come by tomorrow with a new one. In the meantime, just use the room phone. I'll write my number down so you—"

"I know it."

There's a pause, a blessed moment of silence in the endless litany of Jack's words.

"Sorry?" Jack says.

"I know your mobile. You don't need to write it down."

They stare at each other in the sudden awkwardness that follows. Ianto can feel his control slipping as he meets that gaze from across the room and he knows he should leave, should turn away and run as far as he can from this man, from this city, from himself. He glances at the gun at Jack's waist, exposed now by the fall of his coat.

"You were going to shoot me," he says matter-of-factly.

"Did you want me to?" Jack says.

And that was the question, wasn't it? That was the question from the very start, the one they'd both been dancing around since Jack had shown up like a demented hero at Ianto's filthy room at the hostel. Ianto has no idea what the answer is. Or no, that's a lie. He knows what the answer is. But he's ashamed of it, so ashamed. He shakes his head and he lies to Jack and looks away.

"I don't know," he says.

Jack's gaze is piercing but the silence holds and he doesn't say a word.

"Thank you," Ianto finally says, just for something to say, though he's not sure if he means that, either. "For this."

Jack nods. He stands up, leaving the myriad items, all the things that Ianto now owns, scattered across the sofa.

"One more thing," he says as he stands by the door, three feet away from Ianto and ready to leave. "If you check out of here without telling me, if you try to disappear, I will find you. _I will find you, Ianto Jones._ You are not getting away from me again. Never again. Do you understand me?" And there is a threat in those words and such an anger.

"I'm a prisoner, then," Ianto says, and he can feel his shoulders stiffen, his face sliding back into impassivity.

Jack looks at him, looks at him and _sees_ him and Ianto catches his heart beating too fast and tries to pretend he's not afraid.

"If you like," Jack says. "But those are your words, Ianto Jones," and with a sweep of his coat he's gone and Ianto hates him all over again.


	13. Wednesday Early Evening - Jack

Jack walks, because the edges of daylight are still in the sky and besides the traffic is terrible. He is only aware of how clouded his mind has been when it starts to clear halfway down Bute Street. But even clear it lingers in the hotel room with Ianto Jones and the last lie he had told: _I don't know._

Jack thinks he knows the answer. He's asked and answered it himself one too many times to be in much doubt, and the security that brings, this tenuous understanding of the other man fills him with relief. It feels like forever since he's felt this calm.

Of course, it _feels_ like forever but really it's only been two days. Two days since he had sat at the bar with his team and thought how this was worth it. Moments like these, all of them together, all of them here. It made everything else worth it, these brief moments in between.

But they hadn't all been together and Jack thinks back on those two days, to those moments before the alarm went off on his wristband and his entire carefully constructed world had fallen apart. When peace had proven to be a barely held illusion and with hardly a sound the universe had shattered. Again. You'd think he'd be used to it by now

It's a ten minute walk to the Hub and he passes St David's on the way, remembering his brief temptation to put Ianto there instead of the businessman's stopover and conference hall that was the Future's Inn. But he thought he understood something of Ianto after seeing those astronomical numbers on his bank statements. How easy it would have been to simply sweep all those charges in with the rest of Torchwood's ridiculous budget. It would have been barely a blip under Jack's careless gaze. It was Ianto who dealt with the forms, with the finances. Ianto who quietly made sure the figures added up at the bottom of the column before giving it over to Jack for signing before he shuffled it once more back out of sight to be filed in a drawer that no one would ever open. It would have been so easy and Jack wonders if he had ever been tempted at all.

But those numbers had forced Jack to acknowledge that any attempt to surround him with luxury would have Ianto running before the door had even closed behind him. And Ianto's tiny storage closet in the basement, the realisation that Ianto's entire existence had been nothing but  _noise,_ had prompted Jack to choose the blandest, most ordinary hotel he could find that was still within walking distance of the Hub. Where Jack could arrive within minutes of a call for help, a call for someone to yell at, or just a call. Any call. Some line of contact that they'd never had before and the absence of which Jack is suddenly terribly aware.

He's at the Plass in too short a time and he considers turning around, going back, going anywhere, but he has things he needs to do before he sees Ianto again, things that only he can arrange. He takes the invisible lift, staring at the spot from which the SUV had vanished earlier and makes a mental note to ask Ianto who they need to call to get it back. He's half way down before he sees he's not alone. Three faces stare up at him with varying degrees of expression and he braces himself, wondering what the value would be in just sweeping past them all and shutting his door in their faces. He knows that's not fair, though. It was their betrayal, as well.

Unsurprisingly it's Gwen who's the first to speak.

"What the hell were you thinking, Jack? Do you have any idea of how fast I had to talk to convince them that you had an actual reason for holding a gun to someone's head? Did you even stop to think about the fact that this was a seventy year old man with a heart condition who could have bloody _died_ because you couldn't be bloody bothered to say _please?"_

Jack's hand is already out, already placating before he even steps off the lift. He doesn't roll his eyes because he _knows_ she's right, but he's also remembering stained mattresses and a mildewed bathroom and Ianto slowly starving to death in silence, and the temptation to assign blame is incredibly difficult to resist. If only the man had noticed the state Ianto was in. If only he'd called the police, the hospital, _someone_ when a  half-conscious man without shoes or coat had stumbled through his doors on the first cold day of the year. If only he'd thought to check on that man, even once, just to make sure he wasn't dead. But none of that is fair and Jack knows it. He's been in places like that before, has been intensely grateful for their existence and their ability to let one disappear. Sometimes you just need a place where no one gives a shit, and dying even on a stained mattress is better than dying on a floor.

"I know," he says, and his voice stays low, his eyes unrolled. "I know, Gwen. I'm sorry."

"What were you bloody _thinking?"_

"I wasn't."

And with that it's Owen's turn. He gives a derisive snort and Jack's attention finds him, pins him with tight lips to his chair and Owen, as always, doesn't even notice.

"What I want to know is why the hell I wasn't called," are the words that come out of his mouth and Jack has to remember to breathe before he can answer.

"If I recall correctly, your exact words the last time we spoke were _'I can shoot him for you.'"_

"I'm the fucking medic, Jack! Gwen told me the pile of shit he managed to drag himself into. This is my fucking _job."_

"Your _job,_ Owen, is to do what I tell you. Ianto's fine. He's safe. I'll make sure he knows you all asked."

Three voices rise at once, Gwen in protest, Owen in indignation. Only Tosh's voice is soft enough to be distinguished and Jack hears her, "I was going to ask," and he shoots her an apologetic glance that doesn't reach the others.

"This is bullshit. After what he did we're supposed to give a fuck?"

"No, Owen," Jack snaps. "You're not _supposed_ to do anything. It would have been fucking nice though, wouldn't it. Anyway, I thought I told you all to stay at home. There's no Rift alert, all of you get out."

"Why? So you can bring the prodigal son back home while we're not looking? Another fucking stray that you picked up and we all have to live with?" Owen spits and Jack nearly hits him, not least because for brief seconds, before settling on the hotel, he had actually considered it.

"Owen. Go _home."_

"Is that what you were going to do, Jack?" Gwen asks, and there's something unbearably injured in her wide eyes, an awareness of a betrayal she hasn't quite understood, and Jack recognises that in her head, whether consciously or not, she's already stacked Ianto onto the opposite side of the line from _Us._

"Everyone: _home,"_ Jack says. "Tomorrow's Thursday. Get some sleep tonight, you're all back on duty in the morning. Good night."

"Jack!"

"Jack, are you fucking kidding me?"

_"Jack!"_

He ignores them all and gives in to temptation, going to his office and shutting the door between them. After several considered seconds he locks it, as well. He goes to his terminal and he sits there, staring at the screen blankly while he listens to the sound of muffled voices from below. Someone knocks and he doesn't even look up to see who it is. He hears them walk away and seconds later his phone vibrates with a text.

_I can help?_

Tosh. Except that she can't and Jack, ashamed, unconvinced of the rightness of what he's about to do, doesn't want her to see and doesn't want her to stop him. He ignores the message and waits until the alarm sounds and he pulls up the CCTV and watches them all leave.

Only then, when he's alone, when even Myfanwy is silent in her nest, licking her own wounds from the days before, does Jack pull up the files he needs and begins to work.


	14. Thursday Morning - Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER: brief mention of the holocaust, descriptions of gore and trauma.

In darkness, Jack's eyes snap open. He stares at the round yellow hole above his head and listens for German bombers. There is a smell though, the faintest trace of salt and iron, of something hot like sunlight. He inhales Ianto Jones and remembers. The Hub. Cardiff. 21st century. Earth. The alarm on the cog door sounds and Jack groans and rolls out of bed.

The sheets pull around him, tangled around his legs and dragging up at their corners. He frowns at them, makes a mental note to ask Ianto where he keeps the spare linen. He can smell the scent of the other man on his skin from having poached them from the thin mattress in the storage cupboard downstairs. It was that or the bloodied ones from the night before and Jack hadn't quite been willing to stomach that. He had bundled them into the corner of the small room they used for on-site laundry along with his and Ianto's clothes, rescued from the bathroom floor.

He dresses slowly, can't quite work up the energy needed to shower and not really wanting to when someone else is there. He's betting on Tosh and is mentally preparing to meet her thousand questions as he climbs the ladder out of his bunker, and so he's surprised when he finds Gwen seated there instead, two cups of coffee on his desk and an expectant look on her face.

He stares at her blearily as he swipes a hand through his hair and wonders if he's ready for this.

“Jack,” she says, and it sounds like a statement of fact.

“Gwen,” he says cautiously, and takes the second coffee when she glances at it, a silent indication that it's for him, something that would be impossible to tell in anyone else but Gwen, whose eyes and expressions hold the eloquence and exactitude of a fifteen hundred page dissertation on the uses of water on planet Earth, makes it as obvious as if she had shouted it out loud. She is the worst liar he's ever come across and he wonders vaguely if he should tell her, but the purity of her attempts are incredibly endearing and besides, he likes that he always knows what she's thinking and that at least one member of this disparate collection of people at his command will never be able to fool him.

“How are you?” she asks, and he looks at her quizzically as he sips at the luke warm brew. Too much sugar. He makes another mental note to ask Ianto about decent cafes nearby.

He says nothing, keeps looking at her and waits for her to say what she came to work a full hour earlier than normal in order to say. It's not difficult to wait Gwen out. And sure enough, after only five silent seconds, her eyes flicker down and he watches her take a breath.

“How's Ianto?” she asks, and Jack inhales slowly and smiles crookedly into his cup.

“Why are you asking?”

Her eyes flicker upwards and she fixes her wide gaze onto his face, trying to read it. “Are you seriously bringing him back?”

He watches her watching him, obviously expecting an answer, some assurance, a _“no, of course not,”_ a _“don't be silly.”_ But he can't.

“What do you know about Canary Wharf?” he asks instead.

Her brow creases. “What you told us last night. What the news said. Aliens. Those things everywhere, killing people.”

“Lisa wasn't a thing.”

She doesn't say anything, but he sees the purse of her lips as she swallows back the words and he twists his lips into a grimace and with a sigh he goes to his chair, sitting across from her. He stares at her over the expanse of his desk and wonders if this is a terrible idea.

“Lisa was a half-converted Cyberman. Part of her was still human. A large enough part, I think, that for more than three months she's been dormant in our basement, fighting herself. But she failed. Obviously." He quirks his lips. "Pretty spectacularly.” He sees the answering uncertainty in her face, her failure to find the amusement in the statement, and he loves that innocence so much. That illusion that this is the worst thing that could have happened.

“The Cybers don't look like that, though,” he continues, and he keeps his gaze on her, staying fixed on her expression, willing her to understand what he's about to try and say. “In their full form they're steel armour with human brains lifted and hooked up into a machine casing, their emotions stripped away, all ability to feel stolen. Their souls are taken away. The Cybers turn humans into machines. And they don't normally look like Lisa. Killing one isn't like killing a person because all you see is a blank steel mask with a programme inside it. It's like smashing a computer. There's nothing to relate to anymore.

“Eight hundred and twenty three people died that day at Canary Wharf, and that was just at Torchwood Tower. That number doesn't even include the hundreds caught in the crossfire of the Daleks and Cybermen who took over the streets trying to wipe each other out. And out of the eight hundred and twenty-three, only four hundred and sixty-seven were confirmed dead. Cybermen burn the corpses. All those bits that they don't need? They take out the brain and then the rest is tossed into their furnaces to disappear. Just waste.”

“Jack—”

He ignores her, the horror and the pity on her face because this needs to be said. She needs to understand.

“Imagine being in that building. Imagine every person you've worked with, from the person who gets your coffee in the morning to the person who writes your pay cheque at the end of the month. Every single one of them are gone. Imagine being one of twenty-seven people to survive that.

“I was there, in the aftermath. The corpses were piled ten deep in some places. Some dead by Dalek energy blasts, still stinking of barbequed meat. Others deleted by the Cybermen for being incompatible, their hair singed at the ends where the electricity tore through them, the reek of burnt hair, you could still smell it under all the rest. The shit, the blood. All those bodies emptying themselves of everything living all at once. I've been to war zones. I've seen men torn apart by shells, with limbs simply _gone._ But this was worse. Because even in war, in the shit and the piss and vomit, limbs rotting off before you've even died, children who shouldn't have be out of school yet crying for their mothers next to you because they can't remember why they're there. Even then, somewhere among the horror you have that faint hope that at least in the end there's _something_ that you're dying for. That's what we tell ourselves anyway.

“But in that place there was nothing. It was slaughter. It was worse than slaughter. It was _waste._ It was _surgical waste_ because there wasn't even any hate behind it, there was no fear, there wasn't even a joy in the killing. The only time I've seen anything like it was in Germany at the end of the war. When we found the camps.”

_“Jack—”_

“You need to hear this! I need you to understand what being there that day was like. I need you to understand surviving that place and against everything, against every hope, when every person you know is in _pieces_ around you, you find a face. A _whole undamaged face._ Can you imagine that?”

“I'm sorry. Jack, I'm so sorry.”

“I need you to understand this, Gwen. I need all of you to understand this. Tosh was there with me in the aftermath, sifting through the ruins after UNIT had gone through, picking off the survivors. Mercy killings.” He laughs, realises that he's crying. He presses his hands into his eyes and it's the first time he looks away from Gwen. “It's our job. Find the tech. Keep it safe from dangerous hands. She cried the whole time. Didn't make a sound. Just dug through the bodies with tears running down her face. I don't know how she forgave me.”

“It wasn't your fault.”

“No?” He looks at her, really looks, and he can see that she believes it. He wishes so hard that he could too.

“You know, Ianto asked me. The first day he asked me for a job and I said no. He said, _'what am I supposed to do with those memories?'_ And do you know what I told him? I told him it wasn't my problem.

“I've helped save this stupid planet more times than I can count. I help complete strangers in the street, all the faceless people, the good, the bad, the downright evil. No one asks me to do it. No one's keeping me here. No one that I've saved has ever thanked me, but I do it anyway because _that's my job._ But the moment someone asked for my help, what do I do? I tell him no. I turn away because it was just too hard. I didn't think, Gwen. I didn't spare a thought for those twenty-seven survivors because all I could think about was all the people who hadn't survived and that's when you know you've lost. When the death toll finally tips the scale over the living and somehow you find yourself justifying every godawful thing you've ever done because of it. And that's what this fucking job does to you, Gwen Cooper. This is what Torchwood is. And I need you to understand that because when Ianto Jones walks back through those doors—which he will, I swear to you he will—it will be as one of us. It will be as someone who's survived. And no, Gwen, you can't imagine what that's like, but I'm going to need you to try. 

She's crying, like Tosh had been that day. Soundless with tears running down her face and he hates himself, that he's done this to her. That he's done this to both of them because he needed to hear it, too, the words said out loud. Even in his own voice it helps. It makes him understand just how far he'd failed Ianto Jones, how much he'd failed every single one of the twenty-seven people who'd been washed out on that red tide and into the streets. He watches Gwen crying across from him and he sees what she's become, what he's made of her: just one more survivor of that day.

He rises, walks around the desk, and when he gets to her she stands and he holds her. Feels the warmth of her breathing body against his while she weeps into his chest and he tries, for the thousandth time, to drown out the dead with the living.


	15. Thursday Afternoon - Ianto

Ianto wakes up and has no idea where he is. It doesn't particularly occur to him to wonder. He floats in the darkness, in the silence, no reading lamp burning behind his lids, no click and hum of a space heater switching on and off, no low vibration of the Hub in the background, constantly working, constantly awake. There is just the silence and the dark and Ianto lies there and thinks perhaps he's dead and that if he is, he can live with this. Well. In a manner of speaking.

There is something muffled about the quality of the silence, something enclosed. But the darkness is soothing and it doesn't even occur to him to open his eyes to check because dark is dark, eyes open or shut. He floats, feeling nothing, and it's blissful. It's _beautiful._

The first thing that makes him think perhaps everything isn't quite so simple as it appears is the sudden muffled snarl of his stomach telling him he needs to eat. He frowns, eyes still closed, wondering if the dead need food. Brains, perhaps? But that's zombies and being the living dead can't be much of an improvement over the just general living. He really doesn't want to be a zombie.

The next thing is the pressure from his bladder, a strange dawning realisation that feels oddly detached from the rest of him. He wonders if he just ignore these things if perhaps they'll go away, but then he shifts, a movement he makes before it occurs to him that he shouldn't have a body to shift at all, and as he does awareness seems to wake up inside him and everything hurts. Oh god does everything hurt. He groans at the sharp ache in his ribs, his lungs, and forces himself to go still until the thunder of blood in his pounding head abates.

This was a mistake. Living was a terrible, terrible idea.

And with that final realisation—of body, of living, of general existence—Ianto remembers, and this time when he goes still it's not because of his head. He remembers and he wonders if one can die just by wishing it. Lisa. Annie Bennett. A roar of guns. The hostel. Jack. The hotel. _Jack._

_Oh no.  
_

Ianto lies in his king sized hotel bed and tries to reconcile with himself that his prominent emotion at this moment is humiliation. He thinks of the ruination he caused, the three lives destroyed, snuffed out, gone because of him. He thinks of Gwen Cooper screaming on the conversion unit, of a gun against his own head and the finger he had been convinced, so convinced, would pull the trigger. He thinks of Canary Wharf and for the first time since it happened the memory of it is weirdly distant, something seen through the wrong end of a telescope. And lying with his eyes closed, thinking of these things, of the things he's done and seen and survived when he shouldn't have, all he can feel is mortified because after months, after endless weeks of staying strong, they had all seen him cry. He had broken in the end and he can only think with horror of his own accusations, things he doesn't necessarily disagree with, but things that should never have been said. Things he should never have allowed himself to say. He raises stiff and aching arms to his head and tries to burn the images of his own failure into his brain, forces himself to remember what happens, the humiliation attendant when he lets these things break loose. He can't believe he let Owen Harper and Gwen Cooper see him cry. He can't believe he fainted in front of Jack Harkness. He can't believe he told him to fuck off.

He rolls through memories in his head, of frantically stuffing cream crackers in his mouth on a ratty old mattress with ratty old sheets and again in the back seat of a taxi, crumbs falling down his chest while Jack Harkness looks on. He thinks of Gwen Cooper seeing him through the open door of the hostel room, in stained and filthy clothing on a stained and filthy bed, Jack beside him and feeding him like a helpless and pathetic child. He thinks of falling to his knees in the blood of too many people and instead of the horror of that blood, the horror of the lives lost, there is the horror that he had wept. He is torn between forcing himself to remember—to learn from these memories—and eradicating them forever. He considers Retcon, just for that and it shames and horrifies him how difficult it is to force his own mind into acknowledging that this is the wrong reaction to be having. That those images of blood and death should be taking precedence, that the horror of what he had caused to happen should outstrip the horror of how he'd acted as a result.

But it's hard, it's shamefully, disgustingly difficult. He lies in the bed that Jack is paying for, that Torchwood has provided, and thinks of nothing but his own misery. He loathes himself for this failure more than anything else.

He forces himself to think of Annie Bennett, still in university who never should have been there in the first place, who he had _forgotten_ about in the madness ensuing his phone call, his _carelessness_ in leaving that door open for her to simply wander through. He pushes into his mind the image of a family suddenly lost and wondering, an anchor suddenly unmoored.

He thinks of Doctor Tanizaki, the fascinated wonder in his scientist's face and how he should never have been there, never have been brought to view a human trapped in a machine when the opposite had been closer to the truth.

He thinks of Lisa who had been allowed to suffer, who had been forced to live as a machine, been forced to endure a pain that grew every day, fighting the losing battle for her own humanity with the full knowledge that she could never win because Ianto hadn't had the courage to pull the trigger, to pull the plug, to let her die while he was supposed to be saving her. He wasn't a saviour. He had never been and lying here now, on the third day after she'd died, he wonders where that impulse had come from, why he had suddenly, all those weeks ago, thought he could be that for her.

He forces those images, those thoughts through his head, obliterating the humiliation, burning his own misery on the pyre of his guilt, and only when they're white hot against his lids does he let himself open his eyes to meet the impersonal white gaze of the anonymous ceiling of the Future's Inn hotel. It is calming in a way he doesn't quite understand.

He gets up because lying there after he's already remembered everything seems pointless. He's not accustomed to lying in bed doing nothing. Hasn't been accustomed to it since Canary Wharf, but though his mind tells him that that was barely four months ago it feels like much longer—lifetimes, eras. The entire world has shifted on its axis since then and for the first time Ianto understands that it will always be a dividing moment in his life: Before Canary Wharf and After. Already has been, except he hadn't noticed it till now. Hadn't realised how entirely his existence had changed because he hadn't let himself acknowledge that it had ever been any different.

And with that thought comes the ensuing one that _once again_ everything has changed. Three eras, his life now has. Before Canary Wharf, After, and Now, when the last ashes of whatever his life had been have finally settled and he looks out with sudden clarity at an existence he doesn't understand. Suddenly, for the first time, he's free. There is nothing around him, there is nothing left, and instead of frightening him with its emptiness he is incredibly, unbearably relieved.

And that's when someone knocks on the door.

Ianto doesn't even have to guess who it might be. Only one person knows he's here. He shuffles over, the ache in his muscles too deep to convince him that lifting his feet would in any way be worth the pain. The bottom of the flannel sleep trousers Jack has gotten him catch irritatingly under his heels and perversely he adds it onto his mental list of things to blame Jack for, knowing he's being unfair but for the time being not really caring. He opens the door and without bothering to wait or even look, he shuffles away again, heading for the toilet. He hears the door close, the muffled sound of quiet steps, the rustle of a plastic bag, and then Ianto shuts the bathroom door behind him and once again he's gloriously alone.

He takes his toothbrush into the shower with him in spite of having bathed the night before. The vestiges of sleep are still clinging to him and he wants to try to be awake when he goes back out there. He's spent two days breaking down in front of Jack and the others and he refuses to let it continue. He scrubs at his face under the hot water and realises he desperately needs to shave but it's the one thing he doesn't remember seeing among the supplies Jack brought him. He makes a note in his head, the beginning of a list, then after a few minutes absent thought adds the titles of several books he's been meaning to read onto it as well. He thinks of the pitiful collection he has stashed in his storage cupboard in the Hub and he wonders about the wisdom of trying to get them out, but he immediately dismisses it. Jack's presence at the Hub is always erratic and somehow the idea of staking out the place and waiting for them all the leave seems far too dishonest, a thought that amuses him as he considers his past actions. There are limits however, and somewhere he acknowledges that he has reached one. He files the thought away to later pick apart.

He turns the water off and in the sudden silence of its aftermath, as his ears accustom themselves to the quiet, he hears Jack's voice from the other room. It's raised and Ianto can pick out the annoyance in its tone though he can't make out the words. He wonders if it's about him and then berates himself for the thought: not everything is about him. At least he hopes not. And the mild irritation he hears in Jack's voice doesn't seem right. It should be more angry, or less angry, but that middling ground, an unpleasant task that needs to be done, makes him feel oddly hollow, something that forces him abruptly back to non-existence and Ianto wonders what's wrong with him that he both wants to be seen and dreads it.

He dries himself quickly and then, because he's neglected to bring any clothing into the bathroom with him, he pulls the sleep trousers back on and feeling weirdly exposed, as if a man's bare torso is in any way an unusual sight to Jack, he opens the door. Jack is on the sofa and he looks up, slipping his phone into his pocket as he does so. Ianto notices that he's divested himself of his coat and the sight of Jack sprawled in his room in his shirt sleeves and braces is both unnerving and exciting.

"Is that what you're wearing to breakfast?" Jack asks, and as far as Ianto can tell the crooked smile on his face is genuine and Ianto can _feel_ Jack's eyes sliding down his body until even his toes feel naked.

Ianto glances at the large windows where Jack has drawn back the curtains but he gets no clue as to the time of day by looking at the sky. It's uniformly grey, that non-light that could indicate any time at all between sunrise and sunset.

"One o'clock," Jack says, answering the unasked question.

Ianto looks at the bedside clock anyway and he hears Jack snort.

The clothes that Jack brought are still in their bags on the sofa and it takes a surprising amount of willpower for Ianto to walk over there. The baggy leg of his trouser catches on Jack's knee as he passes and it's as noticeable and as embarrassing as an actual touch, as though he had reached out with a hand and deliberately laid it on Jack's leg. He hopes that his face hasn't turned red but he's familiar enough with his own complexion to understand that it's a fruitless hope. He can feel Jack watching him as he upends several bags and without paying much attention to what he chooses, he separates a pair of light coloured khakis and a plain white tshirt. He grabs them, forcing his movements to remain steady, his face calm and blank, and carries them back to the bathroom where he shuts the door and only then does he realise he's been holding his breath. An old trick that he's always done when wanting to remain invisible, as if the absence of breath would register as absence of life and he'd be left alone.

He shucks off his sleep trousers and is pulling off the tags from the khakis (the correct size and he feels both pleased and annoyed by this unexpected evidence of Jack's observation) when he realises he's forgotten pants. He stops what he's doing and stares at himself in the mirror, his eyes wide and red-rimmed and he silently calls himself an idiot and worse. He wonders if he can work up the courage to go back out there or if he should just suck it up and go without when there's a quiet knock on the bathroom door.

"Ianto?"

Ianto closes his eyes and wishes this nightmare could end. "Yes, sir?" he calls back and wonders that his voice doesn't waver at all.

There's a slight mechanical squeak as the doorknob starts to turn and Ianto watches in horror as, like something out of a film, the door begins to open. He's standing there naked in the steaming bathroom with a pair of khakis in his hands and he doesn't think he can move. He wonders if one can actually die from mortification, except that just then the door stops and a single familiar hand snakes in around the jamb. Ianto stares at it blankly before he registers what it's holding: a pair of grey boxers. No, Ianto thinks. No, clearly one cannot die from mortification. He would be a twitching corpse on the floor otherwise.

"Ianto?"

He realises he's still staring at the hand with its humiliating offering and with a wrench of muscle that completely bypasses his brain he forces himself to take them.

"Thank you," he says, or thinks he may have said, but the door's already closed again and Ianto is left staring at it and wondering if it would be better to kill himself or Jack, or possibly both.

He dresses slowly. Part of him thinks that if he takes long enough Jack will have gotten tired of waiting and will leave, but the more honest bit recognises the cowardice and can admit that he's just putting off the inevitable. Jack isn't going anywhere. He gives the tshirt one last tug before he takes a breath and opens the door.

Jack isn't even looking at him, focussed on the mobile in his hand. He's frowning at something on the screen and Ianto walks softly into the room, making sure to leave enough room between himself and Jack's knee on his way to the sofa. When he fishes around through the bags for socks and the reported pair of shoes, Jack still hasn't looked up, and for one delirious moment Ianto wonders if holding his breath really is making him invisible until Jack suddenly snorts at whatever he's reading on his screen and with a dismissive gesture pockets the phone and looks up, blue eyes fixing right on Ianto.

"So, any idea what you want to eat?"

Ianto freezes before he's aware he's done so and he forces himself to exhale his held breath, panting slightly at the enforced oxygen deprivation and calling himself a dozen different names because if holding his breath makes him invisible than surely gasping like a landed fish makes him the most obvious person in the room. He keeps his gaze focussed on the bags. He finds the jacket, a zippered windcheater with a lining and a hood, and he wonders if it will be warm enough.

"Not very hungry, sir," Ianto says when he thinks he can talk without embarrassing himself further.

He's not even looking at Jack but he can feel the force of the disbelieving grimace on his face anyway. "Sushi, then," Jack says.

Ianto glances at him. "For breakfast?"

"It's one o'clock. That's lunch."

Ianto purses his lips. He hates sushi. He can feel Jack watching him and is filled with an almost irresistible urge to hit him when it occurs to him that Jack is perfectly aware of this fact.

"Sushi sounds great," Ianto says and finally finds the damn shoes.


	16. Thursday Afternoon - Ianto Continued

They go to a pub in the end, neither of them saying a word even when Jack sweeps past the sushi place Ianto always order from for the Hub. Ianto doesn't flounder for a second. He matches his step with Jack's, half a foot behind, so that his view is of shoulder and profile and careful dark hair. He notices that Jack has no stubble on his chin and because he wants to be angry and Jack is making it difficult, he focusses on that and on his own unshaved face.

The pub is close to the foot of the Castle, but tourist season is over and inside it's quiet and dark and Ianto stands there at the entrance, his eyes slowly adjusting, while Jack goes straight for a table in the back. It's one of those leftovers from ten years before, the traditional pubs that had missed the call to modernise into something more sleek. It's a far cry from the place the rest of the team normally imbibes at and Ianto wonders if this was done on purpose, if he's getting the stepped down version of what everyone else is getting, but he knows that's not it. He holds onto the thought regardless, however, not because he believes it but because he wants to believe it. Jack is seated in the darkest corner, half hidden by the edge of the bar, and he looks at Ianto in the doorway, neither impatience nor expectation in his face. It's blank and Ianto realises that the choice is suddenly his. He could turn around and walk out and Jack wouldn't come after him, would let him walk away, would probably never bother him again. Not like this, at least. Ianto would retain the hotel room for however long until Jack decided he would come back to work or until Ianto did them all a favour and just killed himself. He's past the hope-fear of someone doing it for him. He doesn't even carry any worry of Retcon any more. If it had been either of those things they'd've been done by now and Ianto hates it but he's conscious of both relief and gratitude.

He is keeping his job, or some form of it, and for the first time since he accosted Jack in a park by hitting a weevil over the head, he acknowledges that if this were Torchwood One he would not have lasted this long. If this were Torchwood One this meeting would not be taking place. He would have been contained and executed without a word, without a moment's thought, just like all the other monsters. And following that acknowledgement is the more important one, the exposure of the greatest lie he's been telling himself since this began: _Torchwood Three is not the same as Torchwood One._ Jack Harkness is not Yvonne Hartman. There is so much relief and guilt in the final inescapable reality of that firm admittance that he thinks he might start crying again, right there in the doorway of this dark and dingy pub, and that alone nearly has him turning back, not because he doesn't want to be here but because he doesn't want Jack to see it. And as if sensing this, Jack looks away, pulling the laminated menu out from between the salt and pepper shakers and focussing on it with far too much intensity.

Ianto squeezes his eyes shut for a second and _wills_ his face to be blank. He steps forward into the pub and his entire life, in that moment, moves on.

When Ianto sits, Jack glances up, a crooked smile on his face. "This place is even older than I—" he begins and then stops abruptly, a look of gaping surprising on his face as he stares at Ianto in something akin to shock.

Ianto, who has never been an idiot, forces himself to look away, his own surprise perfectly hidden. "Seventeen thirteen," Ianto says, and it's his turn to grab a menu and stare at it intently. "That's when it was established. Oldest pub in Cardiff. Well. If you're not counting the suburbs but they weren't technically Cardiff back then."

There is a moment of silence and Ianto can feel Jack's stare boring into the top of his head. Something more is required of him but he's not totally sure what else to say. "That's what you were wondering right?" he tries, and he makes himself look up, meeting jack's quizzing stare with one of bland disinterest. He doesn't try to hold it. Forces himself to look away again, the picture of resigned boredom. He's good at this look. Has spent a lifetime perfecting it. It is one of the greatest weapons in the arsenal of the invisible. And even though he knows he's opening himself up, he says, "Definitely older than the Packet." 

And now Jack's stare is something else and Ianto looks unseeing at the menu as the words grind gently out across from him. "What do you know about the Packet, Ianto Jones?"

And there it is. Ianto knows this will only make everything worse but perhaps it's for the best, as contrary as that seems. He braces himself before looking up and he meets Jack's look with one of his own.

"I know that every Friday night you and the team go to Salt. You usually leave by one. The latest you've stayed is one thirty and you always pay with the Torchwood credit card and file it as a business expense. Tosh likes whatever local pale ale is on tap while Owen always goes to the counter to order because he's embarrassed about the fact that he drinks fruit beer. Gwen likes anything with vodka but she'll usually only get one and the rest will be the least expensive draught they serve because she feels bad about you paying. You always get water, probably out of some misplaced guilt about using the Torchwood credit card but I'm prepared to be wrong about that. The few times you've gotten a drink you've gotten beer, whatever's local, and even though you pretend to be drunk, probably to put the others at ease, by the time you get back to the Hub you're always completely sober again.

"When you're alone, however, you always go to the Packet on Bute. Your presence is sporadic but regular and all three bartenders know you on sight. I don't know what you order, but I know you always pay cash and you tip well, I suspect in order to avoid leaving a digital trail but also to keep the bartenders from getting too chatty with other people. You also turn your phone off, the only time I see you do that, and when you go there you always go there to get drunk. On those nights you do paperwork all night when you come back to the Hub. Probably a matter of personal penance though I haven't figured out what you're punishing yourself for yet." Ianto takes a deep breath before he hammers the last nail in, a deliberate mockery: "Feel free to let me know what it is."

The look on Jack's face would amuse him in any other circumstance, a teeth-grinding flabbergasted rage bordering on awful and reluctant respect. But having it directed at him leaves Ianto with the feeling that he hasn't yet come so close to being shot as he does in this moment. He tries to remember if Jack had his pistol on him at the hotel but it's a futile hope because Jack always has his pistol on him when he leaves the Hub.

And then, unexpectedly, Jack laughs, a low-pitched menacing chuckle that borders just a little too close to the edge of hysterical."You really do know everything, don't you?"

"I watched you," Ianto says and he finally lets his gaze fall, needing to hide the shame in them, the humiliation as he thinks of months of anticipating every order, weeks of knowing exactly what was needed before it was even said, all part of the campaign to make himself invisible and necessary, just another soundless cog in the machinery of the Hub. He'd turned himself into a Cyberman just as surely as Lisa had been turned and with far greater success. Unlike her, he was still alive, after all. "It's what I'm good at, sir."

He is shaking. They are both holding too much tension and neither one of them is trying to hide it right now. Ianto can feel the burn of Jack's eyes on the top of his head but he keeps his own deliberately lowered, refusing to meet it. He stares at the words of the menu and tries to make sense of them.

"What are you needing today, gentlemen?" a thick Welsh voice suddenly says and just like that the tension breaks and slips away and they both look up, startled that neither of them had even seen him coming.

"Talisker," Jack says, barely missing a beat. "A double."

Ianto glances down at the menu again, picks out the first thing he sees. "Pint of Thatchers." He catches the look from Jack. "Oh. Um. Coleslaw to eat."

"I'll have the rump steak and the mixed grill, both with extra chips," Jack orders and Ianto flushes under the darkling look Jack casts him.

"I'm not hungry—"

"And the mushrooms to start if we could."

"Coming up," the bartender smiles and as soon as he's gone Ianto sinks backwards into the wooden chair, every muscle shivering and he can hear his teeth chatter.

"We forgot you," Jack says and the words are harsh. "We just forgot you, didn't we?"

"I wanted to be forgotten, sir."

"That's not an excuse. We're a team, Ianto Jones," and Ianto wonders which one of them Jack is trying harder to convince.

"Just the tea boy, sir. Anyone with a working knowledge of a coffee grinder can do my job."

He jumps at the sudden bang of a fist smacking down on the table between them. "Don't you dare," Jack hisses, and he's leaning forward, his face pressing in and something of his earlier rage is returned. "I hired you, Ianto Jones, and it was not because of your coffee."

"No," Ianto says and he can't help the bitter smile. "It was because of the pterodactyl I let loose in the warehouse. It was because _I looked good in a suit._ Do you think I didn't know everything about you when I first approached you? Do you think Torchwood London didn't have entire files on you and your...particular proclivities? Torchwood Three was the mad little sibling who'd fallen in with the wrong crowd and needed keeping an eye on. You might have erased the digital records, sir, but there are boxes of paper files in the archives with your name on them and London was two steps away from locking you in the deepest basement we had, except that Yvonne Hartman harboured some secret hope that you'd lead us to the Doctor. And then the Doctor actually arrived and it had nothing to do with you and by then it was too late because the entire world ended and now there's just you that's left. You and your handful of agents still trying to save the world by killing everything else that comes near it, everything strange that you don't understand or don't want to understand. You think you're better, that you've got some noble mission, but you still kill more than you save, you still have a weevil trapped in the vaults that you experiment on. You still think that if it's not human it doesn't matter, either something to be destroyed or something to be torn to pieces and studied. But I'm not an idiot, Jack. I knew exactly what I was doing when I found you. And I wanted you to see through it. I wanted you to notice that something was wrong, give me an excuse to give up, but you fucking didn't because you never see anything except what you want to see and I did it, Jack. I fucking fooled you because _I look good in a suit._ That is the beginning and end of my accomplishments. That's everything you ever needed to know about Ianto Jones, junior researcher and unofficial assistant to Yvonne Hartman. She also thought I looked good in a suit, you see. It's amazing the things you learn just by looking pretty and shutting up."

He's on his feet, pushing away from the table, from Jack. He's angry. At Jack but mostly at himself. He can't believe he's done this again, lost control and spewed his rage into what tenuous peace they had managed to achieve. He can feel his heart too fast in his chest, the tension ratcheting up his spine and coiling at the base of his neck, a stranglehold on his lungs, forcing himself to say these things he doesn't want said, that he only half believes. But somehow, since that control had been taken, it's now suddenly so much easier to let it go, so much more difficult to hold it in. His vision is blurring and he thinks he's crying again and he's enraged because this is all he needs, this final humiliation to prove to Jack, to everyone, just how weak he is.

He turns away, seeking blindly for the exit, but there are hands there suddenly, hands that grab him and spin him around and then there are arms around him, clutching at him, pulling him in close to a hard body and the smell of Jack is surrounding him as he starts to sob into the warm protection of that unfamiliar neck. It feels like years since he's been touched, since he's been held, but it hasn't been. It's been months only and it had been Lisa then, in the early morning before they went to work, the morning of the day the world had ended. He had smiled at her across the pillow and sworn to himself that this time he would be the first to ask.

And now it's Jack holding him, one hand tight around his waist and the other on his neck, surrounding him, containing him. Ianto is afraid that if those arms let go all the pieces of him will suddenly start to fly apart. There's a voice in his ear, low and crooning and so utterly unfamiliar, dug up from a part of this man that Ianto's never seen before. He doesn't recognise the language but he recognises the tone and he lets it do its work, feeling the shudders subside, the sobs turn to hiccups turn to sighs until he no longer has an excuse to stay here in this unaccustomed warmth and hates that he even wants to. He pulls away and he feels the arms tighten one last time, a final benediction of comfort before they fall away and Jack goes back to his chair, sits down and picks up the menu again. He looks up at Ianto with a crooked smile. "Told you you were hungry," he says, and Ianto gives a short laugh, a last hitching sob escaping with it.

"I really hate coleslaw," he says and sits back down. "I hope the steak was for me."

"I'll fight you for it."

"You'll probably win."

And they both laugh even though it isn't funny at all.


	17. Thursday Early Evening - Jack

Ianto is drunk. Jack's not entirely sure how it happened but as they weave down Working Street, the shadow of the Castle looming up behind them in the early evening light, he grapples a stumbling Ianto away from the kerb and he admits to himself that he probably should have kept a closer eye on him.

Three and a half pints of Thatcher's should not have had this effect, but it occurs to Jack that in all the time Ianto's been at Torchwood he's never seen him drink, and thinking about it—something he probably should have done two and a half pints ago—he realises that in the life Ianto's been leading since Canary Wharf, visits to the local probably haven't been high on his list of priorities. He also realises, in a rather more obvious fashion, after several days of deep trauma and not enough food or sleep, Ianto wouldn't have to be a lightweight to suddenly find himself unable to stand upright. In fact, it's obvious enough that Jack wonders if subconsciously he was trying to get Ianto drunk.

“I'm drunk,” Ianto says as Jack steadies him against a sudden horde of late-season tourists that seem to appear out of nowhere. He notices several of them giving Ianto disgusted looks and he resists the urge to threaten them with his pistol. The brief consideration is enough to make him grin when he imagines Gwen's face.

“Yes,” Jack says. “Very.”

“I shouldn't be drunk,” Ianto says and walks into a newspaper box.

“Yeah you probably should be.” Jack wrestles the suddenly limp Welshman from what he has apparently decided is an appropriate place to sleep while at the same time trying to flag down a passing taxi. He swears as it accelerates.

“Remind me to ask you who to call to get the SUV back when you're sober,” he grunts as he finally manages to get Ianto upright.

“Who cares,” Ianto says and starts to giggle. Jack has both arms around him and Ianto sags into the support, face pressing into Jack's neck, his laughter hot and alcoholic against his skin. “God you smell amazing. Bloody pheromones. Will you shag me, Jack?”

Apparently even in his drunken state Ianto can feel the sudden stiffening of the body against his because he laughs again, a low growling chuckle and Jack actually feels teeth against the skin of his throat before Ianto pulls away, nearly toppling into the street again as he does so.

“Not here, obviously,” Ianto says and then hiccups. “Not _that_ drunk.”

“Sure about that?” Jack murmurs weakly and is dimly aware of how tongue-tied he suddenly is. This shouldn't be so difficult. Surely he should have said something flirtatious and asinine in return. That would have been the appropriate response. Jack wonders if they have accidentally stumbled across some alien device that has somehow switched their personalities and then decides that Ianto isn't the only one to have had too much to drink.

With a wrench he grabs Ianto, who is standing off the side of the kerb and being sworn at by a passing motorist. Jack attaches him a lamp post.

“Stay,” he commands firmly.

Ianto chuckles and it's low and heated and _oh god how did this go so wrong_ and Jack forces himself to turn away and put out an arm, _willing_ a taxi to stop. Or failing that, a randomly passing good Samaritan with empathic abilities who can see how desperate he is. Something is listening for once, because a few seconds later a taxi pulls up. The driver almost pulls away again when he sees the state Ianto is in, but by then Jack has the door open and his wallet out and he's tossed a fifty pound note into the man's lap.

“Future Inn and I promise he won't be sick.”

The man looks at Ianto and then looks at the fifty pound note.

“And if he is I'll buy you a new cab.”

The driver snorts. “Just make sure he aims for the window,” he says and Jack pushes the docile Ianto into the back of the car before the man can change his mind.

It's a short trip but Jack is aware of the driver being as careful as possible around bends and speed bumps. When they pull up at the hotel door, the A4232 a dull roar behind them, he hands over another twenty quid out of sheer gratitude.

Ianto is quiet as Jack leads him to the lifts, his steps wavering even more as Jack tries to keep him straight, his brow creased and his lids blinking heavily at his surroundings as if wondering how he managed to get here. The lift is empty when it arrives and Jack thanks every deity he's ever heard of because as soon as the doors ping shut Ianto slumps towards him, slinging his arms around Jack and burrowing his face against his neck.

“I hate that you smell so good.” Jack hears, the words pressed into his skin and in spite of himself he feels the heat sliding down to pool in his groin.

“Those 51st century pheromones, I told you.”

“I bloody love the 51st century,” Ianto murmurs and there's the wet heat of a tongue, pressed far too intimately to his ear.

“Shit,” Jack swears and wonders why the lift is so damn slow because he's trying to push Ianto away but for whatever reason all his arms seem to be doing is twisting around the body pressed against him and pulling him closer. “You better hope you don't remember this because you're going to hate yourself as soon as you're sober.”

“Already hate myself. Hate you too. It's perfect.” And the way Ianto growls that word into Jack's ear makes him close his eyes and shiver because this really isn't fucking fair.

“Ianto you need to stop.”

“No,” Ianto says and thrusts his hips forward against Jack in a clumsy attempt at friction and Jack lets out a strangled curse as he nearly topples them both. The lift stops and the doors slide blissfully open. Jack has no idea if he's happy about this or not.

“Bed,” Jack manages. “Now.”

Ianto hums a breathy agreement against his chest and Jack is grateful that no one they know can see them right now as he guides Ianto haltingly towards his room.

For brief seconds Jack considers fishing through Ianto's pockets for his key card, but the moment he props Ianto against the wall he's on Jack again, arms snaking around his waist, hands sliding to his belt where suddenly Jack can feel cool air on exposed skin as the material is tugged away and a hand, rough with calluses and far too hot, suddenly slips against his bare flesh.

“Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Jack murmurs and with a sound that is half groan half growl he dives forward and kisses Ianto hard on the mouth and _oh god_ it is soft and hard, the immediate slide of tongues and the brutal edge of too many teeth.

He can stop, he thinks. It's just a kiss, just a quick snog because Jack can still remember the taste of him, half-drowned and bloodied on the floor of the Hub. Just a taste and then he'll stop, except that he thinks he might devour him, this broken, battered boy he's meant to be protecting, swallow him whole, blood, body, soul, mind, inhale him through senses that were never meant to navigate this century, this child he's kissing, these children of earth with their smell of a sun that Jack was never meant to see. He is moaning, can hear himself and doesn't know how to stop and under his mouth, wide and devouring, Ianto is whimpering like a lost thing, the predator gone, just this boy needing to be taken and owned and _oh god_ does Jack want to own him, take him, teach him and save him, make him whole with the touch of his fingers on far too sensitive flesh.

 _I can stop_ , he thinks and knows it's a lie.

“Jack,” Ianto groans, the word barely audible, swallowed half formed by Jack's seeking tongue. “Jack, stop,” and Jack doesn't think he can until the next words, accompanied by a sudden wracking chill from the body pressed to his: “Going to be sick.”

“Fuck,” and Jack nearly starts laughing, but Ianto is too pale and there's a fine sheen of sweat on his face that has nothing to do with arousal. “Jesus, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” Jack mumbles and he fumbles desperately for the key card in his pocket, the spare one he had requisitioned for himself when he'd booked the room, just in case. “Hold on, Ianto.”

Ianto doesn't say anything, his lips pressed tightly together and his mouth in a tight downward curve. Jack swipes desperately at the door and the second it clicks open he propels Ianto inside. Ianto only gets as far as the sink before he's heaving, clutching at the cool tile with white hands, his body convulsing as his stomach expels three and a half pints of cider and a rump steak with extra chips till he's panting and sweating, tears running down his face, spittle in a long line from his chin to the ceramic basin below.

Jack stands in the door and has no idea what to do, what action will make Ianto hate him more. He wants to go to him, run a hand along his spine, tell him that everything will be alright, that everything will be _whole again._ But it's not something he can promise, not with his hands or with words, and he doesn't understand a great deal about Ianto, but one thing he's discovered in this whole horror story they've been enacting is that Ianto doesn't ask for help. And more than that; Ianto doesn't accept help even when he should. Jack thinks of the last three days, of every humiliation, every exposure endured by this man who had never let them see a thing, and with a final wrench he pulls himself from the bathroom door, shuts it behind him, and as the greatest gift he is capable of, he offers Ianto that precious gift of privacy.

* * * * *

Fifteen minutes later when the bathroom door opens, Ianto comes out to find his bed covers pulled back, his sleep trousers laid out, and the rubbish bin that had been under the small desk set neatly beside the bed.

Jack is nowhere in sight.

However, three hours later when Ianto wakes to a room gone dark, his mouth furry with alcohol and stale vomit, his head an accompanying ache to the pounding of the rest of his body, he finds on the bedside table nearest to the door a glass of water, two powdery white tablets, and a note.

 _Take these,_ it says when he manages to fumble, squinting for the light. And Ianto, questioning his sanity the whole time, does.


	18. Friday - Jack

It is Friday and there are too many alerts. Weevils and rift gifts and a dip in the readings that Jack goes to alone, brutally thankful when the man that has vanished is a homeless veteran who seems to have no family or surviving connections. There is only a dog, a filthy whimpering mongrel that Jack drives to the shelter before he turns back around and with his coat wrapped firmly around it, takes the ferry out across the Bay to Flat Holm. When he finds Helen she looks at him in something akin to shock, her eyes going to the animal in his arms.

“I was thinking,” Jack says. “They're saying that animals are a sort of therapy now.”

The pity on Helen's face is clear and Jack can't help but wonder what she's seeing in him that makes her look at him this way.

“We don't have the staff,” she says.

“I'll send more. Not just for the dog, I mean. I've been meaning to, I'm sorry. Things are...things aren't so good right now.”

“Funds?” she asks gently and he shakes his head.

“No. Funds are fine. I'll send someone. I will. Please, take the dog. If it doesn't work I'll take him back.” He thinks of Stephen and Alice then and wonders that he didn't think of them before.

“Okay,” Helen says. “But you get to wash him and I still think this is a terrible idea.”

He bathes the animal in the large cracked porcelain tub, stripping down to his pants and vest and climbing into the water with it. He scours the wriggling and whining thing until the dirt slowly strips away and the short tawny fur is revealed and Jack wonders why he's doing this, why this dog matters so much all of a sudden. The last time he'd come into willing contact with one had been in 1917, starving in a farmhouse in France and covered in filth of his own. He remembers how hungry he had been and he remembers how when the terrified animal had come to him, cowering against the only warmth it could find, it hadn't even occurred to Jack that this was protein. When he had come back to consciousness the next day to find it dead, he had buried it, one tiny grave among millions.

Now he feels the vital warmth of this living thing beneath his hands and it's suddenly one more reason for him to be alive, one more struggling soul to hold on for, and for half a heartbeat Jack imagines taking it with him, bringing it back to the Hub, keeping it. But then he remembers that even compared to humans, a dog only lives so long, and the thought of giving a piece of his own soul to this short-lived thing leaves a wound in him. He bandages over it with a frown, standing up suddenly and deciding that the dog is clean enough. It shakes and shivers and sprays the bathroom with its fur and when Jack sends it out to its new life he ignores the familiar ache of grief at its departure, refusing to acknowledge what it is.

When he gets back to the Hub, so late into Friday night that it's nearly Saturday morning, he finds the note on his desk in Gwen's broad curling hand:

_Where did you go? Whole team's at Salt. Coming?_

He groans out loud because he didn't even think about that and he doesn't know what it means that all he wants to do is crawl back to the Future Inn and into bed with Ianto Jones. He thinks of that kiss and can still taste the alcohol and the sugar in Ianto's mouth. He can feel himself getting hard again and wonders if he'll ever be able to face the man again, if Ianto will even want to face him. He wonders if Ianto even remembers, if he took the white pills Jack left him. He isn't entirely sure he wants to know the answer to that, but finds himself with his phone in his hand anyway, staring at the number for Ianto's hotel room in his contact list with his thumb over the call button. He presses it, almost convulsively, and immediately swears and hangs up again. He backs out of it, removing temptation, and calls Salt instead where he leaves the Torchwood credit card number with the person in charge for the team to use.

When he hangs up, the abrupt silence is weirdly overwhelming.

Out of habit more than anything else, he turns on the Hub speakers and because he's remembering France and the smallest grave he's ever dug, remembering the gorgeous girls singing to a camp full of boy-soldiers who would only ever see home in pieces if at all, he lets the melancholy sweetness of _Let Me Call You Sweetheart_ drift among the metal and the wires while he kneels among the debris of his home, the last of the mess that Ianto made, that he made, and tries to put it all back together again.


	19. Friday - Ianto

Ianto wakes up and can't remember a thing.

Except that a minute later—the sleep clearing away, the information slotting sluggishly into place—he does, and wishes _oh god_ that he couldn't.

"Oh. My. God."

He stares at the ceiling and clutches at his head and it takes him several moments to realise that he doesn't even have a headache and apart from the furry feeling of something having died in his mouth he actually feels rather good. It's daylight outside, the sun pouring clear and uncharacteristically in through the open curtains. He doesn't even need to squint.

He stares at the anonymous white ceiling and wonders why on earth he doesn't feel worse. He remembers it. Everything. _Everything._ He thinks if he concentrates he could trace the exact outline of Jack's cock against his belly. If he concentrates he can still taste the bite of whiskey on Jack's tongue. He squeezes his eyes shut and wonders if he'll ever finish embarrassing himself or if these last few days are a taste of what's the come, what his life will be like from now on. He wonders if he could just stay here, his head buried under the pristine white sheet in this silent anonymous room and just fade away. He used to be so good at this, at fading, at being invisible. He wonders what the bloody hell has happened.

And yet...the humiliation is oddly distant. An acknowledgement of what he _should_ be feeling. He mentally goes through the list crimes committed by him the day before:

  1. Accidentally brushing Jack's knee when he was supposed to be trying to forget Jack's existence.
  2. Forgetting his pants.
  3. Getting handed his pants by Jack.
  4. Losing control in a public tavern and yelling at Jack.
  5. Losing control in a public tavern and _crying_ on Jack.
  6. Getting drunk.
  7. So very very  _very_ drunk.
  8. Pawing at Jack in the street.
  9. _Propositioning Jack for sex in the street._
  10. Pawing at Jack in a lift.
  11. Trying to dry hump Jack in a lift.
  12. Snogging Jack in the hotel hallway.
  13. Almost vomiting in Jack's mouth.
  14. Barely making it to the loo and vomiting.
  15. _While Jack watched._
  16. Probably was drooling or snoring when Jack apparently _snuck back into his room to bring him water and a hangover cure._
  17. _Which he took. No questions asked. Nevermind that it could have been Retcon. Except that you know that it wasn't because for some bloody stupid reason you actually trust him and when the bloody hell did that happen Ianto Jones._
  18. Fuck.



Ianto lies in the bed that Jack is paying for, thinking of Jack, and wondering what on earth is happening to him. _Lisa,_ he forces himself to think, and when the thought of her name conjures up nothing but the smell of blood and steel he makes himself say it out loud.

"Lisa."

It falls heavy as lead into the silence of the room.

 ** _"Lisa,"_** he tries again, almost shouts it and this time he gets it right. Vanilla and honey and the salty taste of her sweat and the strawberry lip balm she always wore because she knew he loved to kiss it off of her. Lisa. All soft on the outside, back when his hands had been smooth as well. They would glide together like lovers in a painting, young and strong and gorgeous and Ianto felt beautiful and whole and _real_ when he was with her because he knew she would never settle for anything less. Not Lisa. Lisa who was all silk and curves on the outside but when he pressed his fingers in, pushed his palms against her flesh, she was steel and diamond and the strongest stuff in the universe and he had loved her. He had loved her so much. He still loves her, even now as he struggles to block out the stench of terror and pain, the heaviness of eyes glazed with drugs and fear and agony. She had fought and he knows that he never could have. Had their positions been reversed he would have died at Canary Wharf, either because he simply couldn't have lived or because Lisa would have been strong enough, been smart enough to understand what was kinder. And all over again he understands the tragedy of what had happened, that it had been the way it was.

Ianto Jones has never been staunchly religious, but in that moment, finding Lisa's eyes in the ruins of everything he knew, he had lost all hope of faith in any kind of meaning. What was the point of a God that would let him live unscathed while Lisa died? Unfathomable. It was unfathomable. He lies in bed and stares at the ceiling and marvels at how clean it is. How white.

He gets up eventually and for no particular reason. There is nowhere he needs to be, nothing he needs to do. He has a bed, he has food, he (miraculously) has a job when it's decided he can return, he even has five hundred quid. It occurs to him that he should refuse it, should leave it in its envelope and forget about it, five hundred pounds less that he'll have to pay back to Jack, to Torchwood, in the end. But he wants something to read, he wants decent coffee, he wants to leave this room for a little bit at least and feel a sun that he's been neglecting for far too long. He likes the shadows, has always preferred the cloudy days where the wind was just enough to lean into and the rain was a promise for a later hour, an hour when he would be inside and safe and dry and he could watch it fall and approve the added layer of invisibility it gave to the world. But right now he wants light and while intellectually he knows it's simply his body telling him he's spent far too long underground, something bright and bursting in his chest wants to believe it's his soul that's crying out. He looks up at his reflection in the mirror as he brushes his teeth and sees that he's grinning and it takes him a second to realise he's thinking about Jack.

Fuck.

 _Lisa!_ he thinks, but her memory is so far away, something that's been lost lifetimes ago and he hadn't even realised he'd been mourning her till now.

It should bother him, he knows, how abruptly she has fallen from his world. Three days ago she was the immediate concern. No. His _only_ concern. Everything had centred on her and he had hated it, hated himself, hated Jack, hated Torchwood, hated Owen and Tosh and Suzie and Gwen. Even, if he's honest, if he's really _really_ honest, hated _her. Lisa._ Because after a while there was nothing living left of him except for that hatred, burning deep in the untouched centre of his soul—hatred, exhaustion, resentment, fear, guilt. The entire world had conspired to bring him to this place that he never asked to be in and he didn't know how to get out of it again. Deep, deep down, he didn't understand why he'd been saved if there was nothing left for him but this.

But steady and straight and simple, plastered like a bandage over that burning centre, hiding it from sight like the ugly gaping thing it was, was the understanding that he'd been saved for her, for Lisa, to bring her back and make her whole and he'd focussed on that to the exclusion of all else because what was his life if not that? He thinks of weeks of labour, the seemingly unending process of moving her bit by bit into the basement of the Hub, one metal organ at a time, each screw and steel plate a part of this new person she had become. He loved her and there was nothing he would not do for her, his entire existence consumed by the thing she'd become, but deep down, deep deep down, he hated it and at night by himself in the tiny cupboard he had found, the last quiet place in the world, he would think about a warehouse and Jack and a pterodactyl and like a grace, like a curse, six beautiful, horrible words: "Report for work first thing tomorrow," and he would remember that there had been none of the triumph he had expected, none of the vindication. There was nothing but shame and the guilty, horrified awareness that because of those six words, given like a benediction, like a grace, he had to keep going. It would have been such a relief, such a terrible deliverance to have been able to return to Lisa that night and told her that he had failed.

But he's not that lucky. Had never been lucky. And even now he understands that this is fitting, that this is what he deserves for betraying the woman he loves, for failing her so completely. He stands in the bathroom and stares expressionlessly at his own reflection in the mirror as he cleans his teeth and acknowledges that he is _relieved._ And then he acknowledges that whatever happens, whatever has happened, he deserves it because of this.

He spits the toothpaste into the sink and the last memory of the taste of Jack goes with it.

* * * * *

He spends the day walking. He gets coffee, he buys books. He isn't hungry though he knows he should eat but he thinks of his meals already paid for at the hotel and he decides he can wait till dinner. Coffee will do till then and he buys himself another cup the moment the last of the dregs are drained from the previous one.

He walks up to the Castle and then walks back down to the Bay. He stands at the busy Quay, almost in sight of the tourist centre entrance, and he sits and he reads and he drinks his coffee and he feels the sun and is relieved. He looks for that hatred, that burning centre core, but all he can find is a blank numbness. Whatever it was, whatever had kept him alive is gone now and he's surprisingly okay with that. He can drift, if this is drifting. It's quiet. There is nothing in him but echoes. He closes his eyes and breathes and he smells salt and water and old wood hot in the sun and the diesel fumes of the ferries.

When he opens his eyes again the red sunset is pressed against the side of his face and he realises he's been out of coffee for a while. He's hungry too, a sharp almost pleasurable ache below his ribs. Perhaps he won't go back to the hotel for dinner after all.

He gets fish and chips and he eats them in Bute Park, marvelling dimly in a distant sort of way how even now, when logic dictates he should be avoiding this area like the plague, trying to eradicate from himself the bitter taste of everything Torchwood, he is still drawn to these spots, to the familiarity of the only life he can still remember how to live. He savours the sting of salt and vinegar, of battered flaky whitefish that falls apart in his mouth, and when he's done he decides to get some more. He goes back to the Quay with it this time, the greasy heat cradled in his palm and he strays onto the cooling wooden boards. It's dark now, has been for a while. The water gathers up the light of the city behind him and softens it before throwing it back.

It's nine nearly, and because the last chip has been eaten (as good a reason as any) he rises and begins to walk back up the Quay and when he sees Jack, on his own, his coat billowing out behind him, Ianto almost doesn't care. Almost. But there is something oddly furtive about Jack, a characteristic that sits strangely on shoulders so accustomed to bulling through every situation with maximum flamboyance and a grin. And after a moment in which reason has no say, Ianto finds himself going back to his bench and sitting down.

He waits.

It is three hours before Jack returns. Ianto knows him by the light staining the edges of his silhouette. But he is different, defeated. His coat is creased into a ball in his arms and his steps and slow are tired. It is the most disconcerting thing Ianto has ever seen and very nearly he calls out. But something stops him, perhaps the awareness of his own weakness, the realisation that there isn't enough left of him to help someone else. So he watches as Jack steps onto the invisible lift and slowly disappears.

And only then, when Jack is back, when there's nothing left to see, does Ianto get up and go, tired all of a sudden in a world where he no longer has to sleep.


	20. Saturday Morning - Ianto

When Ianto wakes up on Saturday he knows exactly where he is. There is nothing anonymous about the ceiling any more. He spotted the crack in the corner last night while reading and there's the faintest trace of a water stain bleeding through the white paint, only visible when the light hits it just so. His head doesn't hurt. There are still the lingering traces of aches and pains from the bruises sustained from...from that...from Monday night (can't quite say her name in connection to what happened, what _it_ did) but they're manageable and overall his head feels... _clear._ Like someone's pulled a blanket off of his head. It's a startling enough feeling that he finds himself wondering how long it's been there without him even noticing.

He gets up because he wants to. There's an odd sort of energy crackling through him that makes him want to run somewhere. He feels refreshed. He feels _new._ Something pink and raw and unsullied and a shudder running through him and he tries to touch all his skin all at once, as if touching it will contain it, or undo it, or something. He giggles, and it's _weird,_ because there is nothing in it but _joy._ He wonders, a sliver of thought pushed quickly away, if this is part of the shock or the trauma, the next step in his descent to madness, but he finds that he doesn't actually care because this...whatever this is....this is too close to happiness for him to wish it away.

That, of course, is when there's a knock at the door.

He opens it and he finds Jack with two cups of coffee and a pastry bag. "Good morning," Jack says and doesn't give him time to respond before he's slipping in past him, leaving a cup of coffee in his wake. Ianto looks at the logo on the side of the cup, recognises it as one of the places he had stopped at yesterday during his walk. He sips it and is pleased to find that it's black.

"Thanks," Ianto says and with that first sip of coffee he can feel the euphoria slip away, the joy grounding itself abruptly into reality. Jack hasn't looked at him yet, pacing restlessly through the suite, stopping to randomly poke at things with his foot, and Ianto remembers the last time they were together with an inward groan. It wasn't so much that he had forgotten it, but that up to a few seconds ago it hadn't mattered. Nothing had mattered. It had been wonderful.

"Sorry. Not dressed," Ianto says, because he's not sure what else to say. Because this his fault, he thinks, this moment between them. Jack avoiding his eyes because of what _he'd_ done. He tries not to think too hard about Thursday, about pawing at Jack, snogging him, tries not to think about how vividly the press of Jack's cock on his belly has impressed itself onto his memory. He can feel himself growing red and quickly turns into the loo. He closes the door with a snap and makes himself breathe.

"Ianto?"

He jumps. Jack's voice is too near, pressed against the crack of the door. It's bizarrely intimate.

"Just...getting dressed," he says before he remembers all his clothing is out there. _Bloody hell not again._ "I mean, I need to shower. So I can get dressed."

There's a silence and Ianto thinks maybe Jack's gone. Away. Out. At least somewhere far from the door. But then Jack speaks again and somehow it's even worse, the tone low and serious and soft.

"We need to talk, Ianto."

"No. No, we don't."

An annoyed pause. "I haven't even said about what."

"You don't need to. Look, it was stupid. I was stupid. Drunk. So drunk. Please just pretend it never happened."

"That...wasn't what I meant."

"Oh."

"But yes, that too."

Ianto's turn for silence and he wonders how on earth he had ever managed to wake up in such a good mood. "Okay," Ianto says and sits down on the edge of the tub. "Talk, then."

"What, like this?"

"You said talk. We don't need to see each other to talk." He knows he's being childish but he's annoyed now and the sullenness is creeping into his voice.

There's a rush of breath in the crack of the door as Jack sighs. "Fine," he snaps and Ianto feels a vindictive sort of pleasure in the return of anger in Jack's voice. "Fine. You want to do it like this? I never thought you were a coward, Ianto Jones. A liar. A traitor. The most manipulative man I've ever met—and believe me I have met a _lot_ of manipulative people in my life—but not a goddamn coward. But fine. We'll do it like this. You can sit there behind this door and tell me how it felt knowing you tricked me, how easily you fooled me into believing you were worth something. I bet you laughed about that with your girlfriend in the basement, laughing at how stupid we all were. And then leaving her, trapped and tormented while you went off to flaunt yourself in front of me. Did you tell her about all the flirting, every time you got a hard on just from looking at me? You think I didn't notice, Ianto? God, you couldn't even wait a week before she died before trying to fuck her murderer. I'll bet you're proud of that. Was that it? Were you conning her too, the same way you did us? Did you fool her into thinking you were worth something, too?"

It's a flood of words and there's fire edging every one and Ianto can feel them like an iron, each one branding him till he's burning and he's not aware of having moved till he's halfway to the door, breathing hard and trying not to scream.

But he stops. Forces himself to breathe. Squeezes his eyes shut and stays there, listening to his own blood in his ears until it's no longer audible and he thinks he might live through this moment after all. And only then does he open his eyes and step forward again, opening the door and stepping out to where Jack is standing, half-crouched and braced to fight, a look of open challenge on his furious face.

"What do you want me to say?" Ianto says, and the words are clipped and precise.

"Say you're sorry," Jack says and he's breathing hard through his nose. "Say you'll never do it again. Tell me I can trust you and that I didn't make a mistake."

Ianto stares at him and he's surprised at how calm he is in this moment. Not just pretending calm, but actually calm. "I'm sorry," he says. "That I had to lie to you. That I—" and here the calm wavers and he has to stop, find his breath again before he can go on. "I'm sorry that they died. Dr Tanizaki. Annie. I'm sorry that they died because of me. But I'm not sorry that I tried to save Lisa. And I won't do it again because you've already killed her. I don't know if you can trust me. Trust me to do what, Jack? Not hide another killer girlfriend in your basement? And you did make a mistake, Jack. But so did I."

"It's not the same."

"I know."

"You _lied_ to me. To us. All of us. You _lied,_ Ianto. Every single day for four months you smiled and you simpered and you flirted and you did everything without question or complaint and _none_ of it was real. There wasn't a single ounce of truth in anything you did or said. Nothing about you was real."

"Real? What was there _real_ that you thought you saw? Was it the endless cups of coffee? The trash magically disappearing from where you tossed it? The filing miraculously getting done? The car being washed? The weevil being fed? Is that what you mean when you say _real?"_

"That's not fair."

 _"I don't want to be fair, Jack!"_ And suddenly he's screaming. Again. But this time he doesn't care. This time he's glad, the crackling energy from earlier flashing up through his chest and he's  _burning_ in its wake. "She's _dead,_ Jack. The only thing I had left and you killed her! What part of that is fair, _Jack?_ Do you understand what it's like to look up and realise that you're the only thing left alive? That everything is gone but somehow, for whatever _fucking_ reason, something's decided that _you get to live._ Do you have _any idea, Jack?_ She was the _only reason_ that I stayed alive. She was the _only thing,_ Jack, and now she's gone and you killed her, Jack. _You killed her._ And the worst? Do you want to hear the worst? The worst thing is, I'm relieved. _God._ The only reason I'm even here is gone and _I don't want to die._ I _don't want to die, Jack._ So fuck you and your fair. It's not fair. Nothing is fair. If it was fair I would have been killed four months ago and I wouldn't have had to stand here right now and tell you that I'm fucking _happy,_ I'm fucking  _ecstatic_ that I didn't."

Silence descends and they stare at each other, panting across the room. There is a look on Jack's face that if Ianto had been able to process it at the time would have made him pause. But he's in no mood to pay attention, though somewhere in the back of his mind the information, the expression of shock is filed away and recorded to be pulled out at a later time, months from now, when Ianto will have time and reason to remember the many moods of Captain Jack Harkness.

But for now there is only anger, a rage that burns inwards too brightly to be contained, spilling through the straining cracks and consuming the closest thing it can find.

And Jack steps back. He looks away, for the first time since Ianto had opened the bathroom door. He digs a hand into one capacious pocket and he pulls out a phone and a thin sheaf of papers. He thrusts them out in front of him and when Ianto doesn't move he simply shrugs and puts them down on the narrow table near the door.

"Take care, Ianto," Jack says and walks out.

 


	21. Saturday Morning - Jack

Jack doesn't leave the hotel. He doesn't go down. He goes up, as he always does. There is safety on rooftops for him, where he can get away from almost anything. All he has to do is jump. He forgets that sometimes, when he's with others. That rooftops for most people means being cornered, being trapped, but Jack is used to running on instinct and running in general is something he was taught to do by the very best. So he runs now, up, as far as he can go, and he waits for whatever's chasing him to be left behind.

Except that this never works when the thing is inside his own head, when it's his own brain screaming at him, throwing images and words that he can't escape.

_Exterminate!_

_Yeah, I kind of figured that._

_And that first gasping breath back to life, the very first time, and all he remembers is the screams in the darkness as he's dragged past them and his own shrieks are just one more sound in the cacophony he remembers. And he sits up, newly returned from Hell, and finds himself in a different Hell, one he had thought he'd left behind. Then like another nightmare, the sound of the TARDIS engines fading and he can feel the pull of her, dragging away, can feel the panic and somewhere deep down he knows that she had fled but the fear of being left behind is still too strong and all he think is that the Doctor would not have left him, not really._

_He waits a day, sifting through the Game Station, searching for survivors that don't exist until the reek of the bodies becomes too much and he finds the miracle he needs in his battered wrist strap that gives him one last gasp of hope before that too is gone and he's alone again. He had been used to being alone, not that long ago, but somehow the Doctor and Rose felt like an eternity, and by the second day on his own it feels like another eternity since they've left. And..._

_Exterminate!_

_Yeah, I kind of figured that._

_And that first gasping breath back to life..._

And every breath after that, every beat of an impossible heart. Sometimes he thinks he can feel it in him, that moment when he wakes up again from a death, something that's been paused starting up again, beginning again, resetting itself in every piece of his DNA. He doesn't know what he is but he knows that one day he found a grey hair. Another day a wrinkle that he swears hadn't been there before. He is edging towards an end but he doesn't know what the end is and he needs to find out because the body count surrounding him is rising every year and he's tired, he's so tired of being the only one left alive. But at the same time, every time a death passes, his heart shudders back to normal, the wounds slowly close and heal and he can _feel_ himself getting better, getting stronger, and he's so _relieved._

He's _ecstatic._

He watches the city, alive beneath him, and it's all so quiet, the urgency, the fear, the doubt, all of it quiets. He is the most noticeable thing in the sky and he thinks...maybe...maybe this time, whatever had left him behind will see him up here and will take him back.

It's nonsense of course. The TARDIS doesn't work that way. Well. Not usually and not well. And the chances of the Doctor bouncing across the Cardiff rooftops is unlikely. For all that he travels through space and time the Time Lord spends a startlingly small amount of time actually being in space. He lands in the storage cupboards and the basements and the engine rooms of the universe, tinkering with the mechanics and watching with endless fascination how it all works. But he's not a child, in spite of a seemingly endless capacity for wonder and joy. Jack's startled looks from those stormy eyes, unguarded moments in the heartbeats after Rose has— _had_ —turned away and the Doctor had forgotten for a second that there was someone else there. It's the same look that Jack suspects is in his own eyes now, the same look that he is terrified now of seeing in Ianto's.

He wants to stay here. Roofs are easy. Easy to escape, easy run to, easy to hide on, easy to be seen. He _likes_ roofs and he hates them too because he hates the reasons he likes them, the things that have led him to find them and like them so much. He wants to stay, but this world doesn't work that way. And anyway, neither does he. And true to form, it's a text from Gwen that makes him look away, shift his sight from the arc of the empty sky and back to the teeming grey life on the ground. He wonders, not for the first time, if she tracks him on CCTV, watches him and waits for the moment when she thinks she needs to call him back, and even though he knows it's nonsense he resents the thought nonetheless. The text is only a shortly worded enquiry as to how he's doing and if he needs her to come in, but it's a sharp reminder from the world below and the high toned alert of his phone is like a reprimand. He texts her back, tells her it's quiet, to spend some time with Rhys and he'll call her if something comes up and the two separate parts of that sentence are a jarring contradiction, but it's one that he's so used to that he doesn't even think about it any more.

He slips the phone away, thinking of the other phone, left behind in Ianto's room now with a few folded sheets of paper, and Jack wonders if he's looked at them yet, if he's picked them up and found out what they are. Jack hopes so. And he hopes not. He's done pretending to know how Ianto Jones will react. He's finished thinking that he understands a thing. Jones. Ianto Jones. Jack remembers a kiss, a tongue that tastes like apples, and though he's lived and died a thousand times, seen the pattern of a century emerge, through starvation and violence and rage and fear, the best and the worst, often at the same time, from the same person, Jack has no idea how that moment on Thursday night had led to this one, here, of him standing on a roof and thinking of a man who wishes him dead.

 _If only,_ he thinks. _I think I could have died for you, Ianto Jones,_ and it's a startling thought.

  
  



	22. Saturday Afternoon - Ianto

Ianto doesn't look. After Jack leaves, he stares at the papers, at the phone, and then he ignores them.

He brushes his teeth, thoroughly. He showers, a long one. Remembers that he still hasn't bought a razor and stands in front of the mirror staring at the stubble. He gets dressed, changing his mind several times before settling back on jeans and a jumper. He puts on the jacket, grabs a novel, and refusing to look at the table by the door, he leaves.

He makes it to the lobby before turning back around, going back up, and snatching the papers and the phone off the table. He is rolling his eyes at himself as he shoves them into his jacket pocket and slams the door behind him again.

Still, he doesn't look right away. He makes himself wait. He doesn't know if he _wants_ to know what they say. Are they relocation papers? Keys to his new identity? Is he being Retconned after all? Nonsensical to think of it at this stage, but his paranoia is running rampant, feeding off of curiosity and dread and the fact that he has no idea himself what he wants to happen, what he thinks he deserves.

He eats a leisurely breakfast at the hotel where he orders tea, then leaves with his novel in his hand and the papers and phone a disproportionate weight in his pocket, to find some decent coffee. He takes an inordinately long time to do this, finally settling on a backstreet cafe to the west of Bute Park where he sits in the cramped and steaming place and with a deliberate care puts the phone on the table.

It's the logical place to start because it's the least informative and he wants to do this slowly. _Makes_ himself do this slowly. It's a good phone, better than the one he lost on Monday night, and when he checks he sees that he has an unlimited data plan plus the usual text and voice options. He finds the email already set up to sync, both his personal and his Torchwood one. He thumbs through the contact list and finds not only Jack, Tosh, Owen, and Gwen, but a plethora of Torchwood related ones including all contacts for Torchwood Two, UNIT and government contacts, and (with a slight hitch of his breath) the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence. He tries not to think too closely about that. When he checks his programmed speed dial he only finds one number listed though—Jack's. It seems weirdly romantic.

There is a voicemail already in his box and he thinks it's the usual ' _Welcome to Vodaphone!"_ automatic message, but he pulls it up anyway, just in case.

 _"Hello, Ianto,"_ says Jack's voice into his ear and his breath catches in his chest.

 _"Hope you like the new phone. I've been playing with this one for a while using some alien tech I poached off of London. It's got touch security, so only you and me can use it. Anyone else tries and it'll just play a Rick Astley music video on a continual loop till one of us deactivates it. I'll be switching the rest of the team over once I get the time to put some more of the tech together, but I figured since you needed a new phone now's as good a time as any. Once you're back to work I'll be having the general Torchwood email directing onto your phone, too. You're the one who checks it most of the time anyway. That can wait, though. Till you're back._ _Anyway. I'm leaving this voicemail because I don't know if you're ever going to talk to me again. Listen, last night wasn't your fault. This morning isn't going to be your fault either probably but we'll see when I actually get up there. I'm standing in the street in front of the hotel recording this and feeling a bit like a stalker to be honest so you need to tell me if I'm being as creepy as I think I am right now. You're a damn fine kisser, Ianto Jones. One day when you don't hate me as much I hope you'll try it again. But it's on you, Ianto Jones. Just know that. This isn't the job. This isn't Torchwood. When—if—it happens, it'll be you and me. That's it. Why the hell am I saying this. I suspect because things are about to go nuclear in there again between us and I just want...I just need you to know that you're not going to get rid of me. You can hate me all you want. You can dream all you like of watching me suffer and die. That's okay. I don't really blame you. You weren't wrong when said I was a monster. This is Torchwood, though. We're Torchwood. This is what we do. When we fuck up it's always going to be in a world-ending-people-dying kind of way because that's just the way it works. And you fucked up, Ianto Jones. But you're not the only one and you won't be the last of us either. Remind me to tell you about this time in the 60s—no, wait, scratch that. There are things even I won't talk about. Shit. How did this get so goddamn maudlin. Damn machines make it so easy to forget that someone's actually going to be listening to this eventually. But hey, maybe you'll have killed me by then. Save us both the embarrassment. Well. Maybe not. Anyway. Listen. The papers. I looked into things. I looked into you. And I'm...Jesus, Ianto. I'm so sorry. That first day you came to me. That was amazing coffee, by the way. But you know that. I keep thinking if I'd done it differently you would have eventually told me. You would have said something. Asked for help. I don't know. And you did ask for help. That first day. And I told you it wasn't my problem. Jesus. You probably thought I was just another Yvonne Hartman. Why the hell shouldn't you have? Even she would have baulked at some of the things I've done. Not even she would have told you to fuck off like I did that day. It was my problem._ You _were my problem. I may have cut ties with London but I was still Torchwood. I should have done something. You should have been able to trust me. If you had this never would have happened, we would never be here. And I don't know if what I'm about to do is going to help or make it worse, but I want to think that it will help. So. Ianto Jones. I'm finding them. All of them. All of_ you. _I want to try and make this better and if you could help me do that I'd be grateful. But in case you didn't notice I'm sometimes a bit short on tact and I don't think I have many chances at this before I fuck it up beyond repair so if you think you can, if you think it's possible, I'd like to help. I want you to help. So. Let me know, Ianto Jones. You know where I am. Jesus this is a long message. Okay hanging up now and going up. Probably to have my ass kicked but we'll see. Okay."_

And click. And Ianto stares at the phone in his hand like it's alive, like Jack's face has just sprouted from its screen and is watching him now with face pleading and half-defiant. Ianto doesn't even know what Jack is asking yet and he already wants to say yes. Or possibly no. Or possibly yes. Or possibly he just wants to throw the phone into the Bay and have done with it all, with Torchwood, with Jack. But he doesn't, of course. Instead, he pulls up the voicemail and listens to it again. And again. And the fourth time he listens to it he hangs up at _"I should have done something"_ and puts the phone down on the table like it's wired to explode and stares at it blankly, feeling the slow wash of anger flow through him again. Again. Always back to the anger. He wonders if that will ever stop.

When he thinks he can breathe again without counting, he reaches into his pocket and extracts the papers. They're creased and wrinkled and he smooths them out with a broad hand, flattening them and reshaping them with careful fingers, and only when they lying flat does he read them. And he tries to remember to breathe. And he tries to remember to count. He reaches for the phone and he hits the speed dial and it rings five times before the line connects and the moment it does Ianto hangs up again because he realises that talking will disturb the careful count in his head. He puts the phone back in his pocket. Folds the papers twice and puts them away as well. Then moving as if something is about to break, he gets up and walks and his pace matches the numbers in his head.


	23. Saturday Afternoon - Jack

Jack is halfway down the invisible lift when his mobile rings and he nearly drops it off the edge of the concrete slab as he fumbles it out of his pocket. He sees Ianto's name flash across the display and for a moment he lets it ring. Doesn't know if he wants to talk to him right now. He thinks of that goddamn message he'd babbled into the voicemail earlier and he can't believe he didn't erase it. Ianto will have heard it by now. Jack wonders what their next conversation is going to be like. Half begun sentences, stuttered apologies. _"Listen, Jack, the things I said—I didn't mean—"_ He doesn't know if he wants to hear it. He's _tired._ God he's so tired. And some part of him, that petty, vindictive part, wants to make Ianto suffer. _Let him wait. Let him stew in his guilt._

But of course—of course—that doesn't happen. He picks up the phone.

"Ianto Jones," he says into the receiver by way of greeting, keeping his voice light, no trace of that morning in his tone. _I'm better than you right now,_ he says with it. _I'll always forgive you, even now._

And of course—of _course—_ he's met with a dial tone. Of course.

He resists the urge to throw the phone. Makes do with squeezing his eyes shut and waiting with clenched jaw for the lift to reach the ground before striding with swift steps up to his office where he turns on the terminal and with a few short key strokes homes in on the tracking device installed in Ianto's phone. It flashes to life only a few blocks away. Jack watches it for a several minutes until he's sure of its course, then going to the machine in the kitchen he manages to coax out two cups of coffee with a minimal amount of dodgy smoke and several sounds he doesn't remember hearing when Ianto operated it. He takes them to the lift and re-activates it, letting it carry him back to the world.

He goes to a bench and he sits and he waits, the two cups beside him, and he stares out at the bay and waits for Ianto to come.

He does, within minutes. He is wearing jeans and an emerald green jumper and his hair is getting too long, the stubble on his face beginning to fledge into the start of a beard and he looks _good._ Jack rises, both because he wants Ianto to spot him but also because he doesn't want to greet him sitting down. It is rare that Jack feels the need to display dominance so obviously, but there is something too calm about Ianto, too relaxed. He is walking with his hands in his jacket pocket and there is nothing in his face that leads Jack to expect it when Ianto stops square in front of him and with a quick short jab, punches him in the face.

He reels, head snapping back and stumbling backwards to fall onto the bench behind him. He holds his hand up to his face, the second time Ianto has punched him this week, and is oddly relieved to see there's no blood. It wasn't a hard punch, but he can feel the numbness start to give way to a throbbing pain and he glares up at the man to find that the placidity has shifted a bit to reveal a smouldering anger.

"It was me," Ianto says and his voice is tense, tightly controlled.

"I know, I was right here," Jack snarls, pressing at the bridge of his cheek with the heel of his hand.

Ianto rolls his eyes. "Not the punch. I meant Lisa. It was me. I did it."

Jack stares at him, utterly baffled. "You converted her?"

He can see the frustration on Ianto's face, the accustomed reticence battling with this new and bizarre openness between them that not even Jack really understands. He thinks of that message he left, of their earlier conversation, the accusations and the non-apologies and he wonders how on earth he had done it again, misjudged Ianto's reactions so completely. He had fully expected a quietly grateful, suitably chastened Ianto to come crawling back to him, begging for...for...something. Forgiveness? Understanding? Jack's pretty sure he's already forgiven Ianto and he knows he understands what happened and why. But he wants Ianto to be aware of these things, too, to be suitably grateful for them, and looking at him now Jack can see that "suitably chastened" and "quietly grateful" are not words he would use to describe Ianto Jones in this moment.

"Can you at least sit down so we don't have to look at each other when we do this?" Jack snaps.

Ianto's eyes narrow but he sits, moving to the empty place on the other side of the two coffee mugs. "Now who's the coward," he mutters and Jack pretends he didn't hear him.

They're silent for a few minutes, staring at the bay, Ianto motionless while Jack pays an unnecessary amount of attention to his cheek. He can already feel the bruise healing itself. Ianto hadn't hit him very hard at all, and remembering the furious lashing out from five nights before in almost exactly the same spot, he wonders what the purpose was of now holding back.

Finally, when the silence gets to be too much, and because Ianto appears to be completely ignoring his self-ministrations, Jack makes a noise and nods towards the two cups on the bench between them.

"I brought coffee."

Ianto narrows a glance at them. "You broke the machine, didn't you?"

"I'll buy you a new one."

He can see the furious retort spring up on Ianto's tongue only to be instantly bitten back again.

"Say it," Jack says.

Ianto says nothing. Doesn't even look at him.

Jack snorts. "Fine." He picks up the mug closest to him and drinks. It's cold. He fights off an irrational desire to burst into laughter and when he thinks he can drink without choking himself, he takes another gulp of the coffee. It's not _bad_ tasting really. He pulls a flask from inside his coat and tips a portion of the contents into the mug then does the same for Ianto's. "Drink it," Jack says. "If you waste this whiskey I'll _have_ to fire you."

Ianto still doesn't look at him but even in profile Jack can see him rolling his eyes. He looks away when Ianto picks up the cup and tries not to smirk when he takes a sip and grimaces.

"It's cold," Ianto says and it's the same accusing tone of voice as when someone might say _"You murdered her."_

"Should have walked faster."

There's a huff of breath and they both sit there for another minute without speaking. They both take another drink.

"Temperature's supposed to drop tonight," Jack says.

"I thought it was the Welsh who were obsessed with the weather."

"I'm just saying. _I'll_ probably survive freezing to death. Don't much fancy your chances, though."

Ianto looks at him but says nothing.

"There was this time in Russia. Triplets. Now that's what I call snowed in."

Ianto snorts and turns away again. "Why the fuck am I here, Jack?"

Jack shrugs. "Beats me."

"You said. In that message." Jack winces visibly and Ianto flashes him a glance. _"I should have done something._ That's what you said."

Jack flinches back from the memory of his own words and wishes he'd had some self-control. It's a quality they've both been lacking lately. "I should have."

"I did it, Jack."

Jack frowns, picking up on the words Ianto had first said to him after punching him in the face ten minutes before. _It was me._

"It was you," Jack says.

"Yep."

"You did it."

"Yep. I did it. I hid Lisa in your basement. I manipulated you into hiring me. I kept her alive. And when she turned that night I begged you not to kill her. I did that. That was me. That wasn't you. I lied to you. I tricked you. I did it, Jack. Not you."

"Are you trying to make me feel better here?"

Ianto snorts. "Incredibly, Jack, not everything is about you."

"Then what the hell are you trying to tell me?"

And Ianto turns, frustration back in his face, fingers white around the cup in his hand. _"I did it, Jack! It was me!_ Ever since this happened, since that _fucking_ day, nothing that I've done was in my control. I couldn't stop a thing when it was happening. All that _knowledge_ at my finger tips and none of it was any good. I couldn't stop any of it. I couldn't even stop my own fear and do anything. I couldn't even die. I huddled under the corpse of a man I could have cordially pushed down the stairs on the best of days and pretended to be dead until it all just went away. It wasn't in my control when Lisa begged me to save her. It wasn't in my control when I brought her to the one place I thought could maintain her. It wasn't in my control when I lied and manipulated my way into the last fucking place in this world I wanted to be with the last fucking person I wanted to meet. It wasn't in my control. I had to do it. I had to. There was nothing else. But that's a lie. I could have left her. I could have let UNIT put a bullet through her head like they did for everyone else in that godforsaken place. I could have let you take her, to...to experiment on her. Put her in a cell and find out what makes her tick like you do with every alien you don't know what to do with. I could have killed her myself, when the pain was too much because the pain was _always too much._ I could have been better. I could have asked for help. I could have trusted you. I could have realised that she was dying even before Tanizaki came and took away the last of her humanity. You didn't see her before that, Jack. She wasn't a monster. Not until the very end. She was still Lisa. I couldn't let you have her. I couldn't let her die."

"She was a Cyberman, Ianto."

"No. She was Lisa."

"She was a machine. There was nothing human left in her."

"You're wrong. At the very end, yes. Don't worry, Jack. I don't think you're a murderer. You did what you had to do. For Queen and Country."

"For the _world."_

Ianto shrugs. "I don't blame you. You never knew her. You never saw her."

"You could have trusted me."

"No I couldn't."

There's a pause and for a second Jack actually _thinks_ about that. Remembers wading through ground zero. Remembers reading Rose's name on the list of the missing-presumed-dead-or-converted-and-sucked-into-the-Void. Remembers Ianto showing up, a whole living surviving undamaged and untouched human that walked out of that building come to beg him for a job after what he'd done, after what they'd done. He remembers his own rage and he looks at himself as Ianto must have seen him. “No," he says. "I don't suppose you could have. I'm sorry, Ianto.”

"Yeah," Ianto says, and his voice is almost as tired as Jack feels. “Me too.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. But why the hell did you punch me?”

Ianto snorts. “Because. You took it away again. Control. You tried to take it away. But I did it Jack. I cowered. I ran. I lied. I did this.”

“Yeah, you did. But I failed you, too.”

“I don't really give a shit about you, Jack. No offence.”

Jack chuckles. “None taken.”

Ianto smiles then sits back and takes a sip of his coffee. “It's not bad,” he admits.

“I definitely broke the machine.”

“I'll fix it.”

“Are we really going to do this?”

“Do what?” Ianto says, but he takes another drink from his cup, swallowing too much and Jack watches with some amusement as he wheezes on the bite of the whiskey in his throat.

“This. Ignore that thing in your pocket. The reason we're sitting here freezing our asses off and drinking cold coffee.”

“And you call yourself tactless.”

“Did you even look at the paper?”

And this time Ianto puts the cup down. He slips a hand into his jacket and pulls out the thin sheaf of papers, considerably the worse for wear since Jack had last seen it. He unfolds it, his head down. He doesn't look at Jack.

"Sarah Cohen," he reads. "Twenty-eight. Two parents in London, a brother in Canada. Senior Researcher. Currently resident of Bethlem Royal Hospital, South London, where she hasn't spoken a single word in four months and three times has tried to commit suicide.

"Matthew Smith. Thirty-three. No family. Custodial staff. Currently signed in at a halfway house in east London after a bout of alcohol poisoning treated at St Mary's in London.

"Gandhik Chatterjee. Twenty-four. Both parents living, a brother and two sisters with extended family. Second Lieutenant for Torchwood Private Forces. Currently in a coma at University College Hospital in London due to extensive internal damage due to shock. Chances of long term survival: slim.

"Chantoya Miller. Twenty-five. Mother still living as well as a younger sister and a husband who's an accountant. Lieutenant for Torchwood Private Forces. Interred at Queen's Road Cemetery after jumping in front of a train on the underground."

Ianto stops. Stares at the papers in his hands. Families. Lost lives. At the bottom of the first page is Ianto's own name, Jack knows. _Ianto Jones. One sister and extended family. Twenty-four. Junior researcher and archivist. Currently of Torchwood Three, Cardiff._ One name among only twenty-seven who had left that building alive that day. Jack watches Ianto and wonders if he'd even known that there were more.

And as if the thought was spoken out loud, Ianto takes a breath. He shuts his eyes and Jack watches his profile carefully as he swallows hard and wonders if Ianto is going to be sick. But a second later he seems to regain control and he looks up. Folds the papers twice and holds them in his hands.

"I didn't know. I didn't want to know."

"You didn't think it would help?"

Ianto laughs, a short hoarse sound that twists on a sob. "You think this helps?"

"They're not all dead. Not all in hospitals."

"Fifteen including me. Not dead. Not in hospitals. Not trying to kill themselves. Not yet, anyway."

"Don't you dare."

"Fuck you, Jack," but it's said without malice. "Why did you give me this?"

"I want to help."

"It's not your problem."

"It should be."

"You're not equipped to deal with it. No one is equipped to deal with this, Jack."

"I can help. Torchwood can help. I can't fix it, no. _No one_ can fix this, Ianto. But I can make it easier. Hospital fees, psychiatric help, medication, safe houses, income support, families left behind, grief counselling. I can help."

"This isn't your problem."

"It's someone's problem. Why not mine?"

"You didn't cause it. You said that yourself. You cut ties. We deserved what happened to us."

"I was wrong."

"Maybe."

"I was wrong, Ianto. No one deserved that."

"I was so relieved," Ianto says, and he huffs a breathy laugh where it steams on the air. "I was so relieved that Yvonne Hartman had died. She scared the shit out of me. She was so sure she was doing right. I always wondered what it would be like to live with that kind of certainty. It was terrifying. When she noticed me it was like having the spotlight of the universe suddenly pinning me down in place. Like the whole world suddenly stopped and watched right along with her. It was terrifying. I think that's why she liked having me around so much. She knew I was scared and knew I couldn't stay away. She'd always ask how I was doing. She'd ask how Lisa was doing and my sister and the kids and if Johnny was still drinking. I don't even know how she knew this stuff. I didn't even know Johnny was drinking. I hadn't talked to Rhi in months. I never let her see it, though. I always said _fine, Rhi's great, thanks, Johnny is sorting things out but we're trying to be there for him,_ and she'd nod and smile her bright _certain_ smile and we'd both know I was lying but as long as I didn't show it it was fine because that's all she wanted to know. That I knew that she knew. And that I could keep a secret, as long it wasn't from her.

"I only started working with her before...before June. Just a few weeks. She liked to pick people out of the lower departments, liked knowing she had the power to change someone's life that drastically. Junior researcher to lapdog in two days! Not officially, not yet. People tended not to last long with Yvonne. She liked to put them through the ringer before making it official. Saved on the paperwork when they eventually failed. She liked that too, seeing them go from grunt to as good as second in command and back to grunt in the course of a week.

"But _I was good,_ Jack. I was good at what I did. And the things I learnt from her, Jack. Just from being in the same room, from fetching her files and connecting her calls and taking her messages. It was worth it, being terrified, because I found out just how _big_ everything was, how much there was to know, and putting up with her meant that any time I wanted to find something out all I had to do was mention her name and every door in the building was open to me. It was incredible, Jack. I mean, I knew what she was. I knew what she was capable of. But all I cared about was that now I could _find things out._ Thousands of files, millions of secrets, things no one else on our world could even begin to imagine and it was all there waiting for me. I'm positive Yvonne knew what I was doing, using her name as a passport into places I wasn't supposed to be. But it was okay because it was just one more thing she could hold over me. I think she thought it was endearing. She'd sometimes say something, on mornings when I'd spent all night in the archives, just reading, she would sort of smirk and say _'How's Lisa?"_ or _"Busy night last night?"_ And I didn't _care,_ Jack. All I wanted was to find out more. One more shelf. One more section. One more room. There was _so much._ There _is_ so much.

"Lisa almost broke up with me because of it, you know. I became so obsessed I started coming home later and later. Some nights I didn't come home at all. She thought I was having an affair. And I was, in a way. This is what I am, Jack. I did this. I may not have been Yvonne Hartman but what I was was just as bad, if not worse, because I knew what she was and didn't care."

Jack doesn't say anything for a minute. He stares at the Bay, smells the rotting fish and diesel mixed in with the salt and the water and the sun. It's familiar, safe, home. _This century,_ he thinks. _Even dead fish can be comforting here._ He reaches over and picks up Ianto's coffee cup, holds it out until Ianto is forced to look over and take it.

"Drink your coffee," Jack says. "You don't want it to get cold."

"No, sir," Ianto says, but there's wry humour underlying the words that Jack hasn't realised he's missed.

"One day," Jack says, "I may tell you about the 60s."

"Will I want to know?" Ianto asks.

"No. But I may tell you anyway. Who knows. But as you say, not everything is about me."

"No, sir."

"So. You didn't answer me. Will you help me, Ianto Jones? To make this better?"

"And if you don't?"

"That's why I need you."

Ianto looks at him, light eyes wide and intelligent and _knowing._ Jack wonders what he sees because a second later Ianto nods, an abrupt movement, barely noticeable except that Jack was waiting for it, hoping for it. And Jack smiles, can feel something that he didn't know was tight loosen in his chest.

"We'll start tomorrow," Jack says.


	24. Sunday Morning - Ianto

They don't start tomorrow.

It's Sunday, nearly four am, when the phone on Ianto's bedside table begins to vibrate and wakes him up. He squints at the screen, trying to blink the sleep out of his eyes, but it's too bright, his eyes too bleary. He fumbles at the unfamiliar keys until it stops ringing and he hears Jack's voice, low and urgent coming out of the receiver.

"Where are you?"

"Dance lessons," Ianto mumbles. "Thought I'd try to learn the foxtrot." The sarcasm slips out without his volition.

There's a pause. "You were sleeping, weren't you?"

"What do you want, Jack?"

"I need your help."

"Call Gwen."

"I don't want Gwen."

"Tosh, then."

"No."

"Owen?"

"Ianto. Please. I can't—" and there's a pause and Ianto thinks Jack might be crying. There's no sign of it in his next words, however. They are hard and sharp. "I can't lift her on my own."

And instantly Ianto is sitting up, pushing back the blankets and shivering as the colder air hits his skin. "Where are you?" he asks as he starts fumbling for his clothes, phone pressed between his shoulder and ear.

"By the golf course. Roath Dock Road. Hurry up."

"Yeah, yeah," Ianto grumbles but his heart isn't in it. There's something tense and urgent in Jack's voice, something too close to the edge of fear. He hangs up, dragging his clothes on and tugging on his shoes, pulling the knots together with fumbling fingers. He makes sure he has his phone and his key card then hurries out.

It takes him almost ten minutes from the time that Jack called him to find the place where the familiar SUV is parked in the deserted shadows of Roath Dock Road. He jogs the whole way, the cold air dragging at his lungs and making him gasp, his throat aching within minutes. There's a small stretch of green between the wall of the golf course and the black empty road, and he peers into the copse of tangled trees as he runs towards it, trying to make out Jack's familiar outline among the shadows or to hear some sound of distress above the panting of his own breath.

He sees nothing though, hears nothing. He stops, hands on his knees and is about to reach for his phone when a shadow detaches itself from under the canopy and there is Jack, a tight, tense look on his face. He beckons Ianto into the trees before disappearing and Ianto, still trying to catch his breath, follows. It's only a few steps in and Jack has a torch. He flicks it on without a word and as soon as Ianto is beside him he points it down to illuminate something on the ground.

It's a woman.

Or what's left of a woman. Bloated and swollen, deep bruises around her throat, her face purple and her enormous naked body covered in gashes. There is blood, so much blood, and Ianto finds himself gagging for a moment before he squeezes his eyes shut, forces himself to control it, forces himself to breathe.

There is a hand on his arm, a second of warmth and Ianto opens his eyes to meet Jack's strained ones. "Sorry," Ianto says. "I'm fine. What happened?"

"The Rift," Jack says. "We need to help her."

"Jack—" Ianto begins, not sure what to say, that this woman is clearly beyond their help, that the only thing that's left to do is get her remains somewhere safe, but even as he opens his mouth the speak he sees something move on the ground and he gives a choked off cry, stumbling backwards in the dark. He would have fallen except that Jack's arm is there, keeping him upright, and they both watch as the blood on the ground begins to _move,_ sliding over the ground and _back into the body_ , the gashes closing up around it, the bruises on her throat fading, the swelling going down as they watch, her face turning back to its normal colour. And even as her body becomes whole again, Ianto is aware of a sound, a rasping hiss of breath that slowly builds, louder and louder, until it is a wail, a piercing shrieking cry of anguish and agony and the woman's mouth is open, her throat straining, and her eyes are wide and alive and utterly aware and she is screaming in pain on the ground.

"Jesus bloody hell," Ianto gasps and he is about to bend down, about to go to her to do god only knows but, but Jack's hand is on his arm holding him back and before Ianto can even turn to ask him why, there is the sudden wet sound of rending flesh and Ianto stares in horror as the gashes reappear, opening across her body and the blood sprays out before turning into a sluggish crawl, spreading across the ground again and the scream, that terrible scream, suddenly cuts off, turns into a choking gagging heave as bruises reform around her neck and slowly her face turns red, then purple, her face swelling, her body bloating, and then suddenly, almost as horrible as the noise, silence, and she's dead again.

"Help me, while she's dead," Jack says. He is already bending down, going for her shoulders, and part of Ianto is screaming, some voice tucked away in the back of his mind, and it sounds just like Meaghan did at Canary Wharf, some animal slowly dying. But Jack is struggling to get his arms under those bloated, swollen shoulders and Ianto knows this isn't the time, that he doesn't have time to listen to that screaming right now. He goes to her legs, forcing himself not to think about how cold she feels as he puts his arms under her knees and they lift her.

It's a small mercy she doesn't come back to life while they're handling her. She is laid out in the back seat and Jack fumbles through the med kit in the boot. He pushes the full supply of weevil tranquilisers into Ianto's hands before heading for the driver's seat and Ianto stares at the bundle of syringes in his hands and is about to say _"These are going to kill her, Jack,"_ when he thinks about that and stops himself, and with a tightening of his lips he gets into the back seat.

Ianto has no idea where they're going, except that they're heading west. He is trying to watch the scenery and the woman at the same time, his mind flying through possibilities and explanations. The most likely one that comes up is "time loop" but where the Rift took her from is a mystery. She looks human but Ianto knows by now that that isn't any kind of indication, and he's so busy trying to keep track of their location and trying to sort through the repeating track of dead end information in his mind that he almost misses it when the gashes start to close and the bruise on her neck starts to fade and the whistling agonised screaming begins again as a hiss of choking air.

"Ianto!" Jack snaps from behind the wheel, and chastened Ianto thrusts the first needle into the thick muscle of her thigh, pushing down on the plunger, and abruptly the building scream cuts off. The gashes keep closing, the bruises fade and her face and body slowly return to normal, but she stays limp throughout, the scream never coming. And just like before, seconds later, it begins all over again.

"Jack," Ianto says and he can hear the strain in his own voice. "If this is a time loop the medication wouldn't have any effect on her."

"Not necessarily," Jack says. "Time loops aren't necessarily closed things. We can still reach her while she's in it."

"Does that mean we can stop it?"

There is no answer but Ianto sees Jack's grip on the wheel tighten and he feels the SUV accelerating as the bay flashes past on his left.

"Is there anything we can actually do?"

"Other than what we're doing?" Jack snaps. "No. I don't know. I don't think it will last much longer, though. The temporal energy is fading and I can't be sure but I think the times in between her coming back to life are getting longer."

Ianto nods wordlessly and he pulls out his phone, fiddling through the screens until he finds the timer function. The next time the gashes begin to close he hits the key to start the count and before the whistling in her throat can start he pushes the second plunger into her thigh.

"Where are we going?" Ianto asks. He is watching her carefully. The moment the first gash reappears he mentally makes note of the time and then restarts the timer.

"Later," Jack says. "I can't do this right now," and his voice is hoarse and strained and Ianto shuts up, keeping his eyes on the woman in the seat.

It's a short drive, less than ten minutes before they're pulling into the Penarth Quay Marina, but it feels like hours. The woman doesn't wake again until they've parked and they are pulling her out of the back seat and then they have to stop, her torso supported by Jack while Ianto pushes a needle into her leg. This time when he does it she twitches and he can see her eyes actually flicker open and she looks at him like she can see him.

"Jack—" he says, and Jack swears.

"Another one," he says, and Ianto does it without question, unbearably relieved when her eyes slip shut and the bruises on her throat fade away in silence.

And then they are stumbling through the dark again, their breath harsh and overloud and Ianto has no idea where they're going but he doesn't ask, not yet. He knows Jack will tell him later, when this is over, when there is time to stop and think, when they've washed the blood off their hands and bodies again. When Jack guides the way to a small boat, an old but steady looking craft with a covered deck and the name _Estelle_ painted on the side, Ianto doesn't wait for Jack's word before he's pulling off the sheeting and untying the mooring ropes and then they're wrestling the dead woman onto the padded bench on deck.

Just before the last rope is untied, the engine growling quietly into the quiet morning, Jack pauses and looks at Ianto. "You can stay here," he says. "I'll be okay from here."

And Ianto just stares at him as if he's mad. He doesn't say a word, but he sits down on the floor of the deck and pulls out a syringe and the timer on his phone, pulling his jacket tighter around him as he does so, the material sticking to the blood on his hands.

Jack looks at him for a second longer, looks like he wants to say something, either _thank you,_ or _get off._ But instead he just says, "Okay," and the last mooring comes undone and with a growl of the engine they pull out into the bay.


	25. Sunday Morning - Jack

The woman doesn't come back to life again until they've reached the channel, and Jack watches as with a steady hand Ianto depresses the plunger into her swollen thigh and with his other hand starts the timer on his phone. He doesn't say a word, focused entirely on the numbers climbing upwards on his screen and the flow of blood, dripping onto the deck. It is swirling on the floor, trickling towards where Ianto is sitting, but he doesn't even flinch as it reaches his jeans and the material soaks it instantly up. As the water roughens, the channel opening up before them, the spray gathers and turns the decking pink.

Jack tries not to stare. Tries not to let the fear and the pity overwhelm him. This is his life, but seeing it happen to someone else, this dying and living, healing and crumbling, he can taste the bile in the back of his throat and he tries not to be sick. He can very nearly hear the voices, the darkness pressing in, something waiting in the blackness, and with an effort he pushes it away. He can't afford panic right now. None of them can. He focuses on the grip of the throttle under his fingers, pulling it back, willing the boat to go faster. It's about five and a half miles to the island and the boat is an old one. With three people and the vagaries of the wind, Jack keeps it just under twenty-five kilometres and when the boat leaps against the side of a wave he hears Ianto swear and sees him clutch at the phone in his hand.

"I'd like to hang on to this one a bit longer," Ianto calls out above the beating wind.

Jack grimaces but doesn't answer. They're running out of tranquilliser and the island is still fifteen minutes away.

"We're going to Flat Holm," Ianto says and it's not a question.

Jack sends him a piercing look. "Follow me there, too?"

"No," Ianto says. He's still staring at the phone in his hand. "But I doubt we're going to Bristol and we're heading too far out to be going to Sully Island."

Jack laughs. "'Able but not exceptional student,'" he says. "Is there anyone you haven't taken in?"

Ianto shrugs. "I didn't like school."

"I would have thought it'd be right up your alley. All those facts and information."

"Opinions," Ianto corrects. "History is subjective and maths are easy once you get the basic underlying structure of it. And art isn't really my thing."

"I'm surprised. I would have thought you'd be good at everything."

"Why do I get the feeling that wasn't meant to be a compliment."

"I have no idea."

Silence falls again and there's nothing but the wind and motor and the waves. The sky is beginning to lighten in the east, a discernible stripe of blue along the horizon.

"Am I going to regret this?" Ianto says after a minute and he doesn't shout it so Jack almost misses it entirely.

"Aren't you already?" Jack asks, honestly curious.

Ianto's quiet for a moment. "No," he finally says. "This is what I do, isn't it? Collect new information."

"You're not a machine."

"We're all machines, in a way. Sentient, yes, but basically just well-built computers."

"You don't actually think that."

Ianto shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe."

"What about souls?"

"What about them?"

"Machines don't have them."

"It's entirely debatable whether or not humans do."

Jack scowls at him. "I thought you Welsh were all staunchly religious."

"I'm not sure where you heard that. Anyway, having faith in something doesn't necessarily mean it's true. It's just an extreme form of hope, isn't it?"

Jack holds back a sigh and tries not to roll his eyes. "Could you not talk please? You're depressing me."

Ianto doesn't answer, which is answer enough, and the next time Jack looks at him, five minutes later, he's once more focused on his phone, a hand held over the glowing screen in an attempt to protect it from the spray.

They're three minutes out from Flat Holm when Ianto speaks again. "You're right, I think. She stays dead for a little bit longer each time. Are you still getting temporal readings on her?"

"I'll check when we get in. Is the tranquilliser holding?"

"Two doses each time. I'm on my last three needles."

"Almost there," and even as he speaks he sees the lights signalling him up ahead and he loosens his grip on the throttle, following the buoys safely in to shore.

There are four people waiting, two large men carrying a stretcher, Helen, and a young nurse that Jack can't remember the name of. Tish. Tosh. Tasha. Something.

There are no greetings spoken. Helen takes charge immediately and with a minimum amount of fuss the woman is lifted out of the boat and onto the stretcher. The two men disappear down the track, the nurse beside them with Ianto trailing, the three syringes still in his grip. He is talking quietly, explaining things to the nurse, and before the darkness eats them whole, Jack sees him passing the tranquillisers over, the two heads close together in quiet conversation.

"What happened with this one?" Helen asks and Jack looks away from the spot where Ianto had just disappeared and focuses on the worried face of Helen beside him.

"She won't stay dead. We're keeping her sedated because of the pain she's in every time she wakes. I need to do some readings on her but I think it will stop after a while. I hope."

Helen nods and Jack watches as she notes things down in a quick short hand on a notepad. She slips it away and helps him tie up the boat before they start walking to the shelter together and Jack is aware of her eyes on him the whole time.

"What?" he says when he gets tired of it. The wind is fierce on the island and the spray has dripped down his neck, soaking his collar. He can feel the cold bite of the material on his skin in spite of the high collar of the coat.

"Is that young man the help you've been promising us?"

Jack is quietly stunned for a second. "What? Ianto?"

"Nice Welsh name."

"No, Ianto's our...our archivist. He manages us. I needed help. I couldn't get her here and keep her out of pain at the same time."

"You've never brought anyone here before."

"I haven't needed that kind of help before. You can trust him."

"He's young."

"Not that young."

"You're not worried about what he'll see?"

"He's seen worse."

She makes a sceptical noise but makes no reply and they walk the rest of the way in silence. When they reach the concrete shelter it's to find operations already well under way. A vacant room is now occupied and a doctor and the same nurse from the pier are hovering over the woman. She is mid-cycle, the gashes in the process of closing up across her body, and Jack watches from the doorway as Ianto presses down on the timer on his phone again. No one looks up when he and Helen walk in and no one blinks an eye when Jack starts pressing buttons on his wrist band, waving his hand over her body. The temporal fluxes are weakening and he notices that the wounds are no longer closing completely, remaining jagged red lines against her bloated skin.

"It's getting better," Ianto says, and Jack glances up, swears he sees relief in those blank blue eyes before it's gone again in a blink. The shutters back up.

 

* * * * *

 

It's two hours before the woman finally dies and doesn't wake again. The nurse stays with her just in case, will sit with her at least three hours on the off chance that the cycle has simply slowed, but Jack can no longer find any kind of trace of readings on the body and he quietly breathes a sigh of relief.

Ianto is nowhere in sight. As soon as the timer was no longer needed he'd slipped the phone back into his pocket and without a word had left the room. With a last look at the dead woman on the bed, Jack goes to find him.

It doesn't take long. The compound isn't as large as all that and there are only so many places that aren't taken up by private rooms and supply closets. Jack is entirely unsurprised when Helen sees him and points silently to the closed door of the large bathroom. He considers knocking but doesn't. Doesn't want to be told to go away. He opens the door and goes inside and there Ianto is, as he expected. He is standing under the spray of the shower, hands linked tightly against the back of his bowed head. Jack only sees part of his face, more than half hidden by the angle of his arm, but his eyes are squeezed shut and his lips are open in a silent snarl over teeth clenched tightly together. Jack can see the controlled panting of his breath in the heave of his bare shoulders, and without a sound, Jack strips his own bloodied clothing off and steps in behind him.

Ianto gives no sign of having heard Jack, but when Jack closes a hand on his shoulder his entire body gives a single heaving sob, and without once opening his eyes Ianto simply turns around and steps into Jack's arms. They stand there and they cry while the pink stain of blood spirals away around their feet and Jack is forcibly reminded of a morning six days ago. He thinks with some awe that this is the second time he's been naked with this man, the second time he's held him in his arms while he cried, and yet they still haven't had sex. It's a crude thought, unworthy of the moment, but Jack is nothing if not crude at times and the occasion is unusual enough that he thinks it warrants a moment's brief acknowledgement.

Ianto breaks away first, his arms finally falling, his shoulders giving one last shudder. He doesn't look at Jack, but he reaches for the soap and with slippery hands he turns Jack around and with a voice hoarse from crying he says, "My turn to do this," and he washes Jack, with lathered and careful hands, raising each arm and running his hands over his smooth chest from behind. They slide down his back, around his hips, and deft palms circle lower against Jack's belly and Jack doesn't know what to do—if he should stop this, if he should let it happen—when Ianto makes his own choice and just as Jack had washed Ianto, Ianto washes Jack. Slick fingers find his genitals and make them clean and though there is awkwardness in the way Ianto refuses to look at him, there is something so deliberately non-sexual about it that it somehow circles itself back around and makes Jack want him even more and it's frustrating and puzzling and he can feel himself growing hard.

"Stop," he says, and Ianto stops, hands freezing on Jack's thighs. He's kneeling behind Jack and Jack feels his head fall forward, the wet patch of Ianto's hair resting against his hip. "I think you paid your debt," Jack says and he tries to laugh but it comes out shaky. He reaches down to that head, his fingers sliding between the soft soaked strands, and he feels Ianto turn his face in and nuzzle against his skin and Jack has to squeeze his eyes closed and concentrate because neither of them should be doing this right now. Jack wants him but not like this, delirious from grief, the organised boxes of his mind all spilled over, their contents scattered and mixed.

"Jack," Ianto says and his breath is a cool patch against Jack's wet skin. "You said it was up to me."

"Not like this. Please," and he can't believe he's begging, can't believe his voice breaks. He's too close to this, too much has split open between them and he knows if something happens now it will be ruined by the morning, the outpouring of grief and relief too deep to maintain for more than the few hours it would take. And then they'd be back at the beginning. Worse than the beginning, because there'd be no hope of returning to that place again. "Another time. I'm not saying no."

And then there is silence, and even before Ianto moves, even before a word is said, Jack can feel him withdraw, can feel the cold place opening up where his warmth had been. "Yeah," Ianto says. "Yeah, you are." And Ianto is gone and Jack has no idea how to get him back again.


	26. Sunday Morning -  Ianto Continued

The thing that Ianto predominantly notices about Flat Holm is that it's cold. The shelter is built from concrete where the natural stone of the island hasn't been reshaped for its purpose, and the institutional coloured paint, cracked and peeling on the walls, makes him wonder what it had been before this. Or perhaps this has always been here, passing through generations of Torchwood leaders until finally coming to Jack.

Ianto wanders through the bare corridors, reading names on doors, looking in supply closets, noticing the ancient wiring and the lead piping and he doesn't even notice he's begun making lists in his head until he turns a corner and runs into Helen, who is standing in the middle of the hallway jotting something down on a notepad in her hand.

She looks up as he appears and a cautious smile curls the edge of her lip. "Ianto. You look like you belong here."

He glances down at the medical scrubs he's wearing, the only available spare clothing he could find. "Sorry," he says. "My clothes..."

She waves the excuse away. "Not accusing you. Are you looking for something?"

"No, just...looking." He looks at her a little warily, trying to judge how much to say and she returns his gaze with a raised eyebrow and a slightly amused tilt to her features.

"I know what these people are," she says. "Jack's told me. Well, someone had to know. He tried to tell me it was government experiments that did this but you don't live in Cardiff all your life without knowing what Torchwood is. Besides, if I'd thought that he'd had a hand in all this I would have killed him myself, government or not."

"And the others? Does everyone know?"

She shrugs. "Government experiments are a good enough excuse and it's what we tell each other if we talk about it. Mostly we don't. We're just here to make sure everyone is as comfortable as they can be."

"Doesn't seem very comfortable."

She grimaces. "You have no idea. You should be here in the winter."

He nods and he makes his decision. "I can help," he says.

She looks at him a little sceptically. "That's sweet of you, love, but I don't think Jack's planning on letting you go."

"I don't mean like that. Just tell me what you need the most," he says and he pulls out his phone, opening the notepad on it.

She snorts. "Honey, if I told you that we'd be here for a week."

"I can already see the pipes and the wiring need to be replaced. You need a more efficient heating system. Urgently, I'd say, as it's already October."

She stares at him and he sees the barest flicker of hope in her eyes before she blinks and it's gone and she's shaking her head like he's the most innocent thing in the world. "You think I haven't sent this all to Jack already?"

"Jack has a lot happening. But this is my job, ma'am. Shall we begin? I've already noted the electrical and the piping issues. The bathtub could stand to be replaced, as well, and several showers put it. Is there space to have them in separate rooms or should we look at building stalls in the larger bathroom?"

She stares at him and slowly, like the sun rising in winter, real hope begins to dawn in her face. "You're serious," she says.

"Indeed. Shall we begin?"

 

* * * * *

 

It takes an hour, Helen walking him through the shelter, pointing out storage points and private rooms, where lighting needed to be improved or added or changed, where linen supplies are worn through or simply not enough. There's no communal area, Ianto notices, and he asks Helen about it and she just shakes her head. He adds it on as urgent and asks questions about televisions and entertainment and exercise. When they've gone through the inside of the shelter she takes him out and the wind hits him like a something solid. _Shelter,_ he writes, and _protected outdoor space for exercise,_ then after a second's thought, _a garden,_ and he makes a mental note to research flowering plants that might be coaxed to grow in this deserted scape.

It's when they're out there, discussing the virtues of moss, when the sound of a barking dog interrupts, carried from the west on the wind, and moments later a thin and tattered dog with tawny fur and flopping ears barrels around the corner of the shelter. It stops when it sees Ianto, sniffing cautiously before circling him and Ianto crouches down, holds out a welcome hand, and after a few more seconds of uncertainty it comes to him, tail cautiously waving and ears up.

"He's new," Helen says. "Jack brought him here on Friday. Still haven't figured out what to do with him, but the patients seem to like him around."

"I've heard they're using animals in therapy now," Ianto says. The dog, having decided that Ianto is trustworthy, squirms forward with his head down, burrowing under Ianto's arm and knocking him backwards onto his backside. He laughs as it tries to lick his face, wiggling happily in his arms, and he doesn't see Jack appearing from around the same corner as the dog had until he hears his voice, light and amused. He is wearing medical scrubs and slippers under his familiar greatcoat and he looks ridiculous.

"Told you he'd be useful," Jack says, and for a moment Ianto thinks Jack is talking about him until Helen answers.

"As a wrestling partner for guests?" She grabs the dog around the neck and pulls him off Ianto and Ianto, trying to stop grinning, pushes himself to his feet.

"I distinctly heard you say the patients like him."

"And just how long were you standing there listening to us?"

Jack just grins, then sends a searching glance at Ianto who avoids his gaze, bending to pat at the dog who is once more squirming against his legs.

"Is Ianto taking notes?" Jack asks.

"Yes, he's promised me all the things you keep forgetting about."

"I? Forget?" He looks scandalised.

"He seems to think you're busy or something."

"Well you know. Governments to overthrow and all that."

She snorts. "Well, I'm not getting my hopes up till I wake up in the morning able to feel my nose."

A flash of guilt crosses his face. "The heating system. I'm sorry, Helen. I—"

"Forgot," she finishes. "I know."

An awkward silence falls.

"Right," Ianto says, following an irrational impulse to try and save Jack. "I think I've got the basics down. I'm giving you my personal email, Helen. Anything else happens send directly to me."

She looks at him gratefully. "You're a miracle, Ianto."

"Just organised," he says blandly and holds out his hand. She shakes it firmly, squeezing his between both of hers, and as she nudges and coaxes the dog back into the compound with her, Ianto realises he's once more alone with Jack. He steels himself, and he can feel the mental shutters locking into place.

"We should head back," Ianto says. "I'd like to go over the numbers with you. Figure out what we have to work with and allocate what we can."

"Ianto."

"The heating system should be priority, but I don't see any reason why we can't have the electricians in at the same time rewiring the place, and the pipes need to be upgraded, it's still the old lead."

"Ianto."

"I was thinking a sheltering wall for outside, something that will let them be outside with some protection from the wind. And if it goes well, a garden. I'll need to look into plant varieties, of course. And depending on how thinks work out with your dog, you might consider bringing in some other animals. Cats, especially, if they're chosen carefully. Older animals that are settled. Cats can be tricky, but I think if it's done right it could be a really good thing."

_"Ianto!"_

Ianto stops. Inhales. "Sir?"

Jack stares at him and then in three long strides he is across the intervening distance and his body is warm and solid where it presses against Ianto's and his hands, hot and dry, rasp against his unshaven face.

"Don't call me _sir,"_ Jack says and his voice is a breath that presses directly against Ianto's mouth and then, before Ianto can speak, Jack is kissing him with soft wet lips and Ianto can't breathe because his heart is pushing against his chest and there is nothing, no air, no wind, no cold, there is nothing but hot lips and wet tongue and _Jack,_ the scent of oceans and sun burnt sand and something heady that Ianto _wants._ He moans, the sound dragged up from his below his belly, and he doesn't realise he's raised his arms to grab onto Jack, pulling him tighter against him until Jack is dragging himself away again, the warmth of his body disappearing and Ianto barely holds onto the ragged edges of his self-control enough to keep from going after him.

"Ianto Jones," Jack says, and it comes out as a pant and Ianto dares to look at him, standing just out of arm's reach, lips swollen and eyes hot. "You are a _damn_ fine kisser."

"Thank you, sir," Ianto says and even to his own ears he sounds breathless and on the edge of desperate. "Not so bad yourself."

"We _are_ going to do that again," Jack tells him. "But not today."

Ianto nods. "Tomorrow," he says and Jack chuckles.

"We'll see."

"Jack?"

"Hm?"

"I want to help here."

And Jack nods. "Good," he says. "Because I need your help here."


	27. Sunday Afternoon - Ianto

It's nearly noon by the time the _Estelle_ docks again at the Penarth Marina, and Ianto and Jack work in wordless tandem, securing moorings and tying down the protective cover. They carry the bundles of their bloodied clothes in their arms, feeling conspicuous in their medical scrubs, and more than one person watches them curiously as they head back to the SUV. They're almost entirely silent, less than ten words exchanged between them since Ianto had offered his help on the island, and Ianto doesn't know about Jack but he is savouring that quiet, focusing all his energy on the feel of that kiss and the breathless stutter of his heart. He is tired and almost panting with something that could be joy but is probably simply more accurately described as _life,_ and for once he doesn't care what Jack sees in his face. He is trying not to think. Trying not to move beyond that moment when Jack had stepped forward, too close, not nearly close enough, because he knows what's coming next and he doesn't know if he can do it.

They pull up at the Hub in silence and Ianto tries to pretend he's not shaking.

"Hey."

He looks over. Jack is watching him, something unbearably kind in his face, and Ianto doesn't want to see it. He concentrates instead on the yellow hue of the lights in the parking garage, the way they stain everything they touch and turn the world sallow.

"You okay?" Jack asks.

"Yep," Ianto says and he smiles but it's too hard to get the mask back up and he can feel the tightness in it without even having to see the concern on Jack's face.

"You don't have to do this."

"Yes I do. If I want to come back. I have to do this eventually."

"You don't have to do this _now."_

"What would be the point of waiting?"

"So you can be ready."

"I'm ready Jack," he says, and has to look away from the sudden pity on Jack's open face.

"Liar," Jack says, but he unbuckles his seat belt and gets out of the car without any further protest, and Ianto sits alone for a second, trying to remember to breathe, the numbers climbing higher in his head.

Jack doesn't hurry him. He stands outside the SUV, focused on the screen of his phone, pretending not to notice when Ianto doesn't follow him. And still doesn't follow him. And after five minutes he casually drops the keys on the bonnet where Ianto can see then walks away, heading towards the door that will take him through the tunnels and into the Hub. Giving Ianto a choice. For a brief, raging instant, Ianto hates him all over again.

"Fuck," he says in the dead silence of the car and swears that when he reaches five hundred he will get out and go inside. But five hundred comes and goes and he is still sitting there and he is so angry at how weak he is being that with a wrench he feels in his gut he forces a hand up and he opens the door. That's it. Just opens it and he keeps counting. But he is one step closer and he will get there. If Monday doesn't come first, he will get there.

In the end it takes half an hour and the certain knowledge that Jack is probably sitting inside his office watching him over the CCTV. His loathing for himself overcomes the numbers, overcomes the inability to breathe, the sudden struggle of his heart to crack its way through his ribs. He unbuckles the seatbelt and he slides out of the car and he slams the door behind him and listens to the echoes of it breaking apart in the quiet yellow world.

He is halfway to the door of the tunnel when he realises he's forgotten the keys. He stops. He doesn't know if he will make it if he turns around now, but the phone in his pocket gives a chirp and relieved for the distraction, a second longer to make this decision, he pulls it out and reads the text. It's from Jack. _Leave them,_ it says, and Ianto doesn't know if he wants to throw the phone or the keys or Jack himself. He finds the camera and he looks at it and he imagines Jack's face in its place and he tries to pour all his anger, all his loathing, all his fear into that look, but he knows it's only CCTV and the quality just isn't that good. Jack will see him looking though, and if the power of the mind means anything he will feel Ianto's resentment burning him from here.

Deliberately, he puts the phone back into his pocket and turns around and walks back to the SUV. He picks up the keys, still sitting on the bonnet and he tries to put them in his pocket but he can't. They're heavy and jagged in his hand and he closes his hand around them, letting the bite of their teeth drive into his palm and he focuses on that, presses until he feels the trickle of blood, too hot against his fingers. He focuses on it and he starts counting again, from zero.

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten._

He turns his back on the SUV and begins to walk.

It is thirty-six steps to the door and he counts each one, one step per second in his mind. He waits until he reaches fifty before he unlocks it and holds it open for _one, two, three, four, five_ seconds before he steps though and the automatic lights flicker on around him, the door reverberating shut behind his back. It would be so easy to turn around, push it back open, take the keys and drive away. But he turns it into an impenetrable barrier in his mind, encloses it with chains and deadbolts and steel bars and he counts each barrier he puts in his way, _sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty,_ before moving forward again.

He knows this way, has walked it a hundred times before. These steps are as familiar to him as every other part of the Hub, with the exception of Jack's office and quarters. He has spent days and nights enclosed inside these walls, discovering its secrets, knowing without a question that his have been the only footsteps to have traversed these corridors, opened these rooms for a decade or more. There is so much space in the Hub and so little of it is used. There are doors rusted shut now that Ianto only knows the secrets behind because of the ancient set of blueprints he had found, filed in the back of the "B" section. He had taken them and filed them again using his own system, knowing without a doubt that they wouldn't be found again, not until long after he was gone from this place, till all the secrets he had known could be safely passed along to someone else. He sometimes thinks of that future archivist, sifting through his finds, learning it all all over again, that knowledge never dying but being passed on, a tap on the shoulder in the dark.

Coming back here, it is like a prison. Somewhere he was trapped, yes, but somewhere he was safe, as well. He hangs on to that feeling, tries to forget how quickly it had been destroyed not even a week before, but it's difficult because the humming is starting up around him, the constant buzz of machinery deep in the concrete, the thrum of the Bay beating at its walls, and any second he will hear the _beep beep beep_ of Lisa's life support systems, the _chug chug chug_ as the IV line pumps endless chemicals into her blood, the metallic shriek of saw blades whirring fast enough to cut through flesh and bone. He's lost count now and all he's left with are lungs that refuse to compress and a heart that is about to crack. He's on his knees and there is blood on his hand, dripping into the concrete floor and soaking in.

And then there are arms, warm and solid and the smell of an ocean he's never seen and Jack's voice, low and soothing against his ear. They hold him, everything, arms, smell, voice, encompass and contain and he rocks into that safety and he shakes and he tries to remember how to breathe.

After a few minutes he becomes aware of numbers again, the slow steady count of seconds murmured into his ear.

"Two hundred and thirteen, two hundred and fourteen, two hundred and fifteen, two hundred and sixteen, two hundred and seventeen..."

He can feel his breathing steady to match them, two seconds inhale, two seconds exhale, and in his chest his heart syncs up. It's only afterwards, when he can think again, when Jack's presence reforms itself in his mind to become Jack himself, that Ianto realises there is a finger pressed against the pulse point at his temple and that the synchronisation is deliberate.

"Three hundred and fifty six, three hundred and fifty seven, three hundred and fifty eight..."

At three hundred and sixty Ianto speaks.

"Jack."

The numbers stop abruptly. "Hey."

"I'm okay now."

"Okay," Jack says, and slowly unfolds himself from around Ianto's body and stands. He looks unsure if he should offer a hand up, but Ianto's entire body is stiff and aching and he doesn't think he can work his limbs on his own. He holds out a hand for help and with a steady look Jack pulls him to his feet.

It is to his intense relief that Jack doesn't tell him that he doesn't have to do this, that he can go back. Ianto doesn't want to go back but he doesn't know if he _can_ go forward and he hesitates there in that blank concrete tunnel and waits for something to happen either way.

It comes in the form of a hand in his own and he looks over at Jack who isn't watching him but is looking ahead, to the long walk forward. Ianto squeezes, once, and the first step to be taken comes from him after all.


	28. Sunday Afternoon - Jack

Jack watches Ianto carefully, and even more carefully tries to appear that he's not watching him at all.

That mask is up, the expression that Jack is so familiar with because it's the most common expression he's seen on Ianto's face these past four months. Relaxed, easy, the slightest lilt to his lips like he's just about to smile or sneer. And this is the moment that Jack fully realises how complete Ianto's disguise had been. Even now, knowing it's false, he can barely see the edges of the illusion for what it is. He wants so badly to ask if Ianto is okay but he knows—because he's seen this before in dozens of others, because he's _lived_ this before dozens of times—that it would be a disastrously wrong thing to do. It doesn't stop the wanting, however, and his hand around Ianto's clenches suddenly, a brief tightening that he releases again immediately, and Ianto doesn't look at him but Jack can feel his fingers twitch between his own.

The elevator down is smooth and silent and when the doors slide open Jack lets Ianto take the lead, and when Ianto pulls away from him Jack lets him go. He stays two steps behind him as the cog door rolls back and they step through into the Hub.

It is clean. Everything has been scrubbed and disinfected, the blood bleached from the pores of the concrete, the loose wiring repaired and everything broken and irreparably damaged discarded. There are still markers of what had happened, scars in the wall, dents in desks and on steel beams in the places where Jack couldn't hide, but it's clean and it's as close to what it was as Jack could make it two nights before.

When Ianto stops, just inside the door, Jack keeps walking. Pretends he doesn't notice the way all of Ianto's muscles seem to tense and curl inwards, the sudden hitch of breath he can't control. He goes on, takes the stairs up to his office in easy bounds and makes sure that the door stays open. He goes to his computer and he finds Frank Sinatra on his playlist because he knows for a fact he hasn't listened to it in at least six months and he lets it ease in to the silence, the light croon of Cheek to Cheek floating out through the open door. He keeps it quiet, leaving it as nothing more than a presence, a noise that is something other than what Ianto knows, something _different._ He tries not to go back and look for him, not for at least three minutes. He steals Ianto's trick and actually counts it out, starting at one and all the way up to one hundred and eighty before he goes to the round glass window that overlooks theHub and peers down to see how far Ianto's gotten.

But Ianto is gone and for a brief second Jack can feel his own minor panic attack beating up through his belly and into his chest.

He controls it immediately, whirls back to his monitor and pulls up the CCTV and finds him instantly. Ianto. He's in the basement and Jack catches him just as he disappears outside of the camera's purview. He curses himself that he hadn't thought of installing a more thorough system throughout the Hub the moment this had been over, but he admits that he'd had other things on his mind. It doesn't matter though. He knows where Ianto is going and he hesitates on whether or not he should follow him. But Jack thinks of him, curled up inside his arms, that capable, efficient body suddenly so _small_ and trying desperately to remember how to breathe and with only a moment to shut down the CCTV link on his screen and snatch the keys from his desk he hurries out to follow.

He stays at a distance and he keeps his footsteps as quiet as possible. The levels become dimmer as he goes down, the damp heavy and cold in the air. He thinks about how Ianto had lived in this place, in these dark mouldering tunnels, and he wonders how he hadn't gone insane. It occurs to him that he might already have been. He wonders how often Ianto had left just to go outside. His jobs had all been confined almost entirely to the Hub, apart from the occasional trip to top up on any supplies or run errands. But they couldn't have amounted to much and Jack can't remember a single time when he'd been inside the Hub and looked around to find Ianto and not instantly had him there. Jack swears to himself that he will do better and he's afraid because isn't entirely convinced that it isn't too late.

At the corridor before the turn off to where Lisa had been hidden, Jack slows and stops. He pauses, listening for something. Anything at all. A breath, a scuffle of a shoe, a sob. Anything. But the silence is eerie. There is nothing but the noises of the Hub, so normal that he doesn't even notice them anymore.

He hesitates again but in the end, as before, he moves forward, keeping himself as quiet as he can. He is good at this. Has had lifetimes to get good at it, but the utter absence of sound coming from where Ianto ought to be is unnerving and by the time he reaches the bend he's almost afraid of what he'll find. He takes a quiet breath and steps around the corner preparing for...for what? He doesn't know. It doesn't matter, because Ianto isn't there. The door to Lisa's room is still closed and there's no sign of him anywhere.

“Jack?”

Jack jumps. His heart gives a wild leap in his chest and he wonders if he's about to have a heart attack.

“Ianto,” he says as calmly as he can, but he is still tensed up and the tight smile on his face feels vaguely threatening as he turns around. Ianto is standing in the opposite corridor holding a small stack of books and a space heater.

They stand there for a second saying nothing, then Ianto's eyes dart past Jack, landing on the door behind him.

“I didn't go in,” Ianto says as if he's defending himself, as if he's reassuring Jack.

Jack isn't sure how to react to that. “Would you like to?” he asks, and he is careful, oh so very careful, to keep his voice neutral.

Ianto stares at him and Jack can see his mind working, trying to figure out what Jack _wants_ him to say, what the correct answer to the question would be, and a brief flash of annoyance makes Jack roll his eyes, a mistake as he sees the flash of shame on Ianto's face before, in a blink, the mask is back up.

“I was just clearing some things up,” Ianto says, gesturing with the space heater in his left hand. “It gets damp down here. Seems pointless to let it get ruined.”

“It's okay, Ianto.”

Ianto's look is carefully quizzical. “Sir?”

Jack resists the urge to swear at the return of that blasted syllable. “You can look,” Jack says and gestures to the door behind him.

Ianto doesn't say anything for a second. Then he swallows. “It's locked,” he says.

Wordlessly, Jack takes the keys he'd snatched from his desk out of his pocket and tosses them easily to Ianto, who drops the space heater with a reverberating crash of metal on concrete and catches them one-handed, a look of blank shock on his face as if he isn't entirely sure what his body's just done.

He stares at the space heater on the floor at his feet and is about to bend down and pick it up again when Jack's voice stops him, cold and sharp and unintentionally angry.

“Leave it.”

Ianto does. Freezes in mid-gesture and slowly straightens again. He isn't looking at Jack and all at once it's Monday night again and Jack's just told him to go home.

“Go look,” Jack tells him and it's a command and there is nothing in his voice that shows that he doesn't expect it to be obeyed.

Ianto moves, a jerky forward motion that almost sends the stack of books sliding, but Jack is there, moving quickly and catching them before they can fall. He takes them from Ianto's arms and he picks up the space heater and Ianto watches him with wide bewildered eyes.

“Go look,” he says again, kinder but no less a command, and this time Ianto actually nods, his grip tightening around the key where there is still the dried blood where a previous key had already bitten through his flesh. He doesn't seem to notice the pain, whatever there might be of it. His fingers are deft and the movements are terribly familiar as he fits the key into the lock and opens the door.

It swings inwards on its hinges without a sound and for several moments Ianto just stands there, unmoving as he looks inside.

For about ten seconds neither of them speak, and then in a voice so quiet Jack almost doesn't hear it, Ianto says, “It's empty.”

He goes inside then and Jack follows him, just to the door, and watches as Ianto walks through the whole room, going into every corner, staring up at the shadowed ceiling. His footsteps are hollow and echoing in the stripped chamber and Jack watches as he comes to the middle, where six days ago the conversion unit had stood, dominating this room, his life, and Ianto stops. Looks at Jack with a face completely open, entirely bare, and for a second Jack's breath catches. He's _beautiful._

“It's empty,” Ianto says again and there is relief, such relief in his eyes that Jack's heart breaks. And then, as if shocked by his own body's betrayal, Ianto starts to cry.

“It's empty,” he says again, “It's empty,” and Jack watches him from the door as he weeps in the centre of the deserted room and doesn't try to hide.

“Where is she?” he asks.

“Cremated,” Jack says, because it's kinder than 'incinerated.'

Ianto nods. “Thank you,” he says.

Something occurs to Jack too late. “The ashes...”

Ianto shakes his head, emphatically. “No.”

Jack nods. He turns to leave but Ianto's voice stops him again.

“Jack. Thank you.”

Jack turns back, looks at him, has no idea what this is for. Ianto sees it in his face because his expression turns incredibly tender for just an instant before he says it again.

“Thank you. For killing her. For not making me do it in the end.”

And Jack just looks at him, at this beautiful boy, and he thinks how easily he could have ended up breaking him that night. “You're welcome,” he says, and means it.


	29. Sunday Afternoon - Ianto Continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so sorry for the crappy update. early mornings are done in a couple of days and i should be able to think again i promise. for now, please endure this incredibly boring chapter.

The compiled information for Flat Holm is startlingly organised. It is kept in a file on Jack's computer marked as _Accounting,_ encrypted and password protected, with hard files stored in a single large filing cabinet in the secure archives.

There is no hesitation in Jack's voice when he tells Ianto the passwords to get into these things. There isn't the smallest indication that less than a week before Ianto had betrayed him, had betrayed all of Torchwood, and had nearly gotten them all killed. And Ianto is looking for it. He tries not to show how hard he is staring at Jack, trying to find some indication that he is questioning this decision, regretting this at all, but there is nothing but calm focus on Jack's face as he tells Ianto exactly what steps he'll have to take to get into these places.

"You're not paying attention," Jack finally says, and Ianto starts because it's true. He is lost in his own head, lost in this place where betrayals suddenly add up to trust and he doesn't know how they got here.

"Sorry," Ianto says.

Jack sighs. "We shouldn't be doing this yet. It's too soon."

"No. I want to."

Jack looks at him and there's is such tenderness in his gaze, such understanding, that Ianto is momentarily breathless. The universe stops as he watches one hand come up and the heat of Jack's palm on the side of his face becomes the epicentre of something shattering and Ianto thinks how easy it would be to lose himself in this, to slide under the broken earth and be consumed, and he wonders what's wrong with him that he can sit on the site of his girlfriend's murder and think like this about the man who killed her.

He turns his face away and the hand falls away.

"I want to," Ianto says, and stares at the screen and waits for Jack to show him again.

Several seconds of silence pass before he hears Jack's almost soundless sigh. "Okay," he says. "Pay attention then."

It is incredibly organised and relatively simple. Ianto is good at organisation and he's good at managing things and despite the fact that it's purpose is a secret and its inhabitants horrific, the running of the place is straightforward if behindhand. After the initial run through of supply runs, bills, bribes, wages, medical equipment, and basic survival needs, Ianto turns Jack's attention to budget and recruitment policies and as Jack talks, Ianto listens and quietly files things away.

He notices more than Jack says. He notices, for example, that the lease of the island is dated for one hundred years and it's in the name of Jack Harkness. He notices that the paperwork doesn't go further back than the year two thousand. He notices that the budget numbers he's being given are enormous, almost as large as for the Hub itself, and that funds seem to be trickling in from a variety of accounts and sources, some of them South American, some of the Middle Eastern, and one that he suspects isn't from Earth at all. He takes note of the wages, far higher than he'd expect to see, certainly higher than he was getting paid which, having seen first hand what the nurses and doctors of Flat Holm have to deal with, he both understands and appreciates.

He also takes note of the file marked _'Taken'_ and the other file marked _'Returned'_ and settled uneasily at their side, _'Compensation.'_ He wonders who Jack is compensating. He wonders why, and as he watches his leader while trying not to appear that he's watching him, he wonders not for the first time what it is exactly that Jack is punishing himself for.

It's six o'clock by the time they stop, and only because Ianto's stomach starts making noises and Jack, as if from a daze, screws up his forehead and looks at the clock.

"Shit," he says.

Ianto, pulling his head up from the latest spreadsheet he'd been putting together, scowls and rubs at his eyes. "We can order in," he says and reaches for the phone. Jack stops him, a hand around his wrist.

"No," he says. "We're stopping. We're not going to fix this in a day."

"Doesn't mean we can't try," Ianto mutters but his heart isn't in it because Jack's hand around his wrist is too warm. He tugs it away and stands up, steadying himself against the desk as stiff muscles protest and lingering aches and bruises complain.

"Hotel for dinner?" Jack asks, rising up beside him, reaching his arms up and arching his whole body back as he yawns, wide and unashamed.

"Sure," Ianto says and wonders where this assumption came from, that they'd be eating together, and part of him wants to ask about it but the other part wants to stay quiet in case Jack suddenly notices and changes his mind.

They walk because they both need to move and neither of them speak as they wind their way up the darkening streets. The city is quiet, the evening traffic reduced to quiet couples and one or two families out  for dinner, and absurdly, the thought springing up from nowhere, Ianto wonders if anyone looking at him and Jack would mistake them for a couple. If something in the way they're walking, the way they carefully don't touch gives something away. He feels a warmth stealing up his spine at the idea and hates himself for it.

 _Lisa!_ he berates himself, and beside him Jack glances over at him curiously but says nothing.

Dinner is nearly as silent but the quality of the silence itself is oddly shifting and the closer they get to the end of the meal the more tense it becomes until by the end of it, as the last drop of coffee is drained from the bottom of the cup, Ianto is clenching and unclenching his fist under the table. They rise as one and Ianto sees the same relief in Jack's face as he feels in his own.

In the lobby, standing in front of the elevators, they stop and they stare at each other and then Jack laughs, an endearingly nervous sound and Ianto watches as he puts a hand at the back of his neck and rubs it.

"I guess I should have asked if you wanted to have dinner together, huh?" Jack says.

"I wanted you," Ianto says, and then feels himself turn red. "I mean, I wanted to, with you."

Jack looks at him sceptically. "Right."

 _I wouldn't lie,_ Ianto wants to say, but stops himself because the utter untruth of that statement after the last four months is too enormous to utter. But it's true, for all that.

"Aren't you worried?" he says instead, and when Jack looks at him questioningly: "About me. Everything you showed me. After what I did."

And this time when Jack laughs its genuine. "Don't ask me that," he says wryly. "And we still need to talk about that."

Ianto grimaces. "I thought we were."

Jack throws him an amused glance. "I'll bring a laptop by tomorrow morning so you can work on stuff here. Same encryptions and pass codes. You know the budget. I'm giving you free rein to make what decisions you think need to be made."

"You can't be serious."

"Why the hell not?"

"Jack, what I did—"

Jack sighs loudly. "Get some sleep. We'll talk. Soon. Just not now."

"Jack—"

"If you keep talking I'm going to have to shut you up," Jack says and he tries to leer but there's something frantic about it, turning flirtatious into manic and somehow it's even more compelling, this sign of weakness that makes Ianto want to step forward and hold on, wrap arms around each other and keep one another from falling apart. And he almost does, can see the moment in Jack's face when Jack realises it and is about to step forward, something wanting and so soft on his face.

_Lisa._

And Ianto steps back instead. Looks away so he doesn't have to see the disappointment on Jack's face.

"Tomorrow," he says. "I'll text you about the electricians."

"Don't bother," Jack says, and Ianto risks a peak upwards, just in time to see him turning away and sweeping with a flap of his coat towards the exit and the last words are thrown almost negligently over his shoulder. "I trust you."


	30. Sunday Night - Jack

Jack doesn't sleep that night, can't bring himself to. He goes out and looks for weevils, scouring the city for something to hunt but there's nothing, the streets abnormally quiet and in the end, wet with cold rain, he retreats to the Hub where he strips himself and shivers naked under his blankets. For the first time in _years_ he puts a hand on his own cock and brings himself off, hissing obscenities in the darkness of his bunker and feeling his orgasm hit him like a punch to the gut, painful and draining and intensely unsatisfying because there's nothing there for him to punch back. He lays panting and confused in his too-small bed and wonders what the hell has just happened.

Ianto. Ianto Jones.

He thinks of that second in the hotel lobby, that moment when he'd been sure that Ianto would...what? Kiss him? Invite him up? Something. He'd been ready, so ready, but the man had been distant all night, hiding first behind the files and the spreadsheets and the bank statements, and then later when Jack had proposed dinner as a way to remove those obstacles from between them, something else. The silence had been so unlike every other silence that had ever come between them. There was nothing hostile or angry about it, but it had been there nonetheless, thick and muffling and every time Jack had thought of something to say he could feel it getting lost in that space that separated them before it even left his lips.

Something's changed, but he doesn't know exactly what.

The Hub. It must be the Hub. Coming back here to this place, and whatever his words to Jack down in the basement while Ianto had stood in the place his girlfriend had still lived and then turned and thanked him for his girlfriend dying, Jack doesn't quite believe that Ianto could have meant it. Jack had _killed_ her. Whatever she had been by then, Ianto clearly hadn't been able to see it, and Jack _understood_ that. He wanted to take Ianto by the shoulders and shake him and tell him, _"I Get It."_ But it wasn't that easy. Words meant next to nothing in these situations. His own words, _"I trust you,"_ his own wild fling into desperation, were already regretted because it wasn't something Ianto needed to hear and the speaking of them came too close to saying something else. But it was something Ianto needed to _see_ and Jack hoped that something of what they'd done today had gone some ways to proving that.

 _I trust you._ And he does. They aren't a lie. And he doesn't need to delve too deeply into why because it's obvious to him on an instinctual level. Ianto loved and would destroy the world for that love. Jack both fears and admires that. But now the object of that love was gone and suddenly every pretence could be put away. He trusts Ianto not to lie to him again simply because the reason for those lies is gone. Simple. Incredibly logical. But it feels anything but logical to Jack, staring into the dark and wanting to hit something. He wonders, not for the first time in his long life, if he is simply making excuses.

But the fact remains, he had _trusted_ Ianto. And not just with the Hub, with Torchwood, with himself, but with Flat Holm. And that was something extraordinary.

Extraordinary, but again...logical.

  1. He needed help to keep Melissa quiet. (Yes, her name was Melissa, disappeared two years ago, Jack still remembers her face from the posters.)
  2. Ianto was the closest therefore would be the quickest to respond.
  3. Ianto tended to be calm in situations of high stress (when it wasn't his own girlfriend being slaughtered and doing the slaughtering, anyway.)
  4. Whatever else he lied about, his managerial and organisation skills were unprecedented.
  5. The Doctor would be coming soon and someone needed to know about Flat Holm while he was gone.
  6. Jack needed help.
  7. _Jack needed help._
  8. And Ianto was there.



Ianto's had been the first and only name to pop up in his head when he'd stared at the woman, screaming on the ground at his feet. And he wonders that, after years of doing this alone, he'd suddenly found himself standing in the dark and wishing for someone else to show up and do something. Ianto's had been the first and only name to pop up in his head and as he lies in his bunker, waiting for morning or for a Rift alert or a weevil sighting or the groan of the TARDIS engine or _something,_ he wonders if, had Ianto not been available, if he would have called anyone else and he knows that he wouldn't have.

He imagines Owen, swearing and shouting, blaming Jack and then blaming himself because _someone_ needed to be at fault because it just wasn't in Owen's view of the world that there was someone he couldn't help, a patient that couldn't be healed.

He imagines Tosh, standing there, mouth half agape in horror, unable to move, so absolutely brilliant but so utterly at sea in this situation, where brilliance simply couldn't do anything.

He imagines Gwen, demanding explanations, demanding that they do the right thing and utterly unable to comprehend that sometimes there was no right thing to do. Sometimes you just did what you could and prayed for the best.

And he imagines Suzie, though Suzie is dead, and he thinks...yes. Suzie he could have called. But it doesn't change the fact that in seven years it had never once occurred to him to do so.

No. He'd _wanted_ to call Ianto Jones. Everything else was just an excuse.

It occurs to him to wonder if he'd made a mistake, if all these built up excuses hide a terrible idea, but he can't find anything in him to support that, and for a man used to living on his instincts, this was enough. And looking back on that day, at Ianto's calm competency, at his supportive silence, how he'd known just when to step forward, when to fall back, when to stay quiet, when to speak, Jack understands that whatever gut reaction had led him to place that phone call, it hadn't been a mistake. And that leads him to wonder if, perhaps, if he'd done this earlier, shown some trust in the man, showed he was trusted and could be trusted in turn, if Ianto would have said something about Lisa. If Ianto could have learnt to ask Jack for help before it had all come to a head last week.

But the truth is, before this, Jack _hadn't_ trusted him, not when he'd bothered to think about him as something other than the hand that brought him his coffee, the broom that swept the floor, the arse that looked good in a suit. Outside of all that, Jones, Ianto Jones, had still been ex-One, had been someone who had been there when Rose had died. Had been one of the ones who hadn't stopped it all from happening. And Jack hadn't even realised that until Ianto had said it himself and Jack had had to stop the urge to correct him, to reassure him, that none of this was his fault, that there wasn't anything he could have done, that it had happened and that he, junior researcher, archivist, information seeker, wasn't the one to blame.

But he couldn't, because he knew that what Ianto was saying was for himself, was a natural step in the progression of guilt and grief and self-recrimination and maybe one day Ianto would forgive himself but it wouldn't be today. It wouldn't be any time soon. It might be never. But nothing Jack said or did would make these things go away.

It's four thirty when he finally gets up, bone-deep exhausted in a way he hasn't been for a long time, but he knows he won't get any sleep. He knows this night is over, for him at least. He gets dressed and climbs the ladder into his office where he pulls out the laptop he's begun to prepare for Ianto to work on, all the information he'll need for the Flat Holm project, but other information, too. Things that are for Ianto himself to find and to decide to act on if he chooses. He makes sure the contact information that he'll need is there, should he want it, then tucking the laptop under his arm he takes the lift back up to the Plass where the streets are glittering in the city lights from the earlier rain. He walks, going to the hotel by the same route they had taken together hours earlier, and when he reaches the front desk he hesitates only minutely before going to the lift and pressing the button to take him up. He reaches Ianto's room and listens at the door, trying to find some sound, some indication that Ianto is still awake. But the hotel is all muffled silence and after a minute he pulls out his key card and unlocks the door, slipping into the room and gently shutting the door at his back.

He stands there for several minutes in the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust, trying to hear some sound above the rush of his own blood in his ears. He waits for some cry, some movement from Ianto, a figure looming in the dark, but nothing comes and when he finally calms down enough to hear it is only the heavy sound of Ianto's breathing that's there.

He pads forward quietly, leaves the laptop in the lounge on the coffee table before going into the bedroom where he picks out Ianto's shape huddled under the sheets. In here, his breathing is more than the heavy breath of sleep. It's louder, a little too fast, and there's an underlying sound to it like a sob. There is the faint sound of something shuffling quietly in the dark and it takes a minute for Jack to realise that Ianto is shivering.

He goes to him, sitting carefully on the edge of the mattress and stares down at the pale face, contorted and crying in the illuminating light of Earth's single moon, and carefully, as if Ianto is some artefact he's never seen before, he reaches forward and lays a hand on his face.

"Shhh," he whispers, and leans down and presses a kiss against that damp temple where he strokes the hair back and smells the heat of Earth's sun in his sweat. "You're safe. You're safe."

And slowly, under Jack's hand, Ianto starts to calm, the shivers stopping, the tears slowing, his face relaxing into sleep, and Jack smiles as Ianto takes a final shuddering breath before breathing a single word, a name: _"Lisa."_

And the smile is gone and Jack is rising, backing out of the room, closing the door behind him and running up the stairs to the roof where he breathes in the cold air and watches Cardiff slowly come to life below him, the sky black and empty above.


	31. Monday Morning - Ianto

When Ianto opens his eyes he knows immediately what day it is.

_Lisa._

He'd dreamt of her last night, of hot metal and blood, the only thing he seemed to dream any more when he thought of her. But slowly, like a forgiveness, the dream had changed and he had been in bed with her again, that last morning before the world had ended and she had touched him in a way she hadn't before, something inexpressibly tender in her face. "I'm sorry," he'd said and hadn't known what he'd been apologising for because there was too much, too many ways in which he'd failed her. "It's okay," she'd said. "I'm here. You're safe." And he'd believed her.

Now he's awake and it's light outside and Ianto smells Jack on his sheets and his first thought is that something happened that he forgot, and his second is that recognises the smell of Jack even when he's not here and he wonders when that started happening. He closes his eyes because he can't think of him today. He can't think of Jack on this day, only a week since she died. He shuts his eyes and tries to conjure the image of her up, tries to conjure the smell of honey and vanilla, her shampoo and face cream and the lipbalm she wore because she knew he liked the taste of it. But all he can smell is hot metal and blood and the aftershave that Axel used.

A sob chokes up from nowhere and he bites it back, snapping his eyes open. He refuses to do this. He sits up and gets ready for the day, though he doesn't know what the day entails yet, and he only sees the laptop on the coffee table when he's putting his jacket on. He pauses, brow furrowing. Jack had been here. Jack had been inside. He thinks again of the smell on his sheets and he finds himself blushing, thinking of Jack in the room with him, on the bed with him...

He shakes his head, banishing the thought.

_Lisa!_

And he remembers a soft body turned hard with steel.

He leaves the laptop behind, not ready yet to face the things they contain, the horrors made manageable through spreadsheets and budget projections. He goes to the restaurant and orders a full English breakfast and he makes himself eat it. Has two cups of coffee even though it's terrible and orders a third to take upstairs with him. Fortified, ceramic mug hot against his hand, he turns on the laptop.

And that easily he is back at work again and the world is slowed by habit, by organisation, by rational thought. He finds the files as Jack had told him he would, keys in the passcodes and encryptions and he is in. Inside Torchwood, inside the protective blanket of purpose and use. He finds an electrician and a plumber first. It's not as difficult as he thinks it will be, but then he makes sure to offer twice the normal pay for it and money is always an efficient incentive, even for a job like this. He mentions Torchwood, which helps, because they are the worst kept secret in Cardiff, and in spite of the exasperation with which the inhabitants of the city view them, there is just enough curiosity to turn it into an incentive. He makes arrangements for two days from now for the Penarth Marina then calls Helen to confirm and there is an embarrassing amount of gratitude in her voice, leaving his own end of the conversation stilted and formal.

He begins looking through personal ads next in the classifieds, picking out the desperate, the ones that show up time and time again, the ones that won't be able to say no. He makes a list, does background checks. Eliminates the people with close families. Eliminates the people with partners. Eliminates the people who are too rich, too assured, too stable. He finds past employee evaluations and work history. He sorts through them, finding the ones who could keep secrets, who didn't talk much, who had trouble bonding with co-workers, who didn't make friends easily, who stayed late and found things out and never spoke. And he highlights their names and calls them. He sets up interviews with three of them.

From there, he delves into the files of the _Taken_ and the _Returned_ and he matches names and faces, noting who is confirmed dead, who is still out there somewhere, lost among the universes. There are several in the _Returned_ file that don't show up in _Taken,_ and Ianto wonders where they came from, what world they're missing from, what family they left behind and if there's a Torchwood there too to do what Jack is doing here. Which leads him to _Compensation,_ and this is so broad as to have lost all meaning. It encompasses every cover story cobbled together, every dose of Retcon administered, several serial matches of corpses requisitioned and altered from cold storage to match missing bodies. Two families have monetary compensation attached to them, one of them a single bulk payment, the other one an ongoing monthly payment. The totals are modest enough not to be remarkable, but in their nature impressive nonetheless. He is certain that the funding for the Flat Holm project comes entirely from Jack's personal investments. As he goes along, Ianto reorganises and refiles, setting up new folders, creating new labels.

It's past two by the time he looks up and realises that he's hungry. He orders room service so he doesn't have to stop, and while he's waiting he walks around the room, stretches stiff muscles and testing fading bruises. His mind is buzzing, a hundred new points of information to file away and digest, a parade of names and faces, of horrors listed and described to join the ranks of witnessed horrors already there. He boxes it all away, files them away in his own mental archive, points of reference and things to take down and inspect when they're needed. But right now isn't the time. He has always been good at this, at separating himself. It used to frighten him but he gave up being scared of himself years ago.

His lunch arrives and he sits at the coffee table and eats it, exploring the laptop with a casual hand as he does so, letting himself drift through the files. There isn't much he doesn't recognise. It's almost all related to things he'd need for organising Flat Holm, things they'd touched on yesterday. But one small folder, down at the bottom, doesn't seem to be linked to anything else. It's labelled _CW_ and the coincidence is enough that he doesn't doubt that it's something he was meant to see. He clicks on it.

There are four files inside.

 

> _Canary Wharf survivor list - contact information_
> 
> _Canary Wharf - survivor compensation budget_
> 
> _Ianto Jones - wage renegotiation and updated job description_
> 
> _Ianto Jones - payment plan_

He freezes, hand half way to his mouth. A piece of lettuce falls off his fork and he doesn't notice.

He clicks on the last one first and for several minutes he simply stares at the screen, at the single line of text with its embedded number. An insane number and one he recognises instantly.

_£ 10,201.14_

It is his accumulated credit card debt, carefully noted in his personal files. It's a number he's been watching grow for the last four months. A number he's been trying to ignore because the weight of it is suffocating and the thought of how he's ever going to repay it has been a subject he hasn't allowed himself to consider.

And the words around it, in language that isn't nearly legal enough:

_Ianto Jones does contract himself to repay to Capt Jack Harkness the sum of £10,201.14 for payment of various debts at 0% (zero percent) interest over the course of whenever he can._

And underneath, hilariously, two blank lines with each of their names typed out beside them, clearly places for them to sign. Ianto stares at it, this ridiculous incredible document, and with fingers that aren't entirely steady he pulls up the browser and goes to his banking site where he stares at the screen, at the numbers on his accounts suddenly sitting at zero. Two of his three credit cards have been closed out and cancelled entirely, and in his chequeing account, an utterly absurd number that leaves him gaping at the screen in disbelief.

He reaches for his phone but his hand is shaking and he thinks he might be hyperventilating all of a sudden because his breath is coming in too fast and he knows calling Jack right now would be a terrible idea because he has no idea what he'll say. No idea if he can even accept that this has happened though he has no idea how to reverse it. He's angry at the high-handedness of it but the relief he feels leaves him breathless. He needs to see Jack, to find out what's going on, to find out how he did this and why.

Almost frantically he clicks on the third file: _wage renegotiation and updated job description._ And under the heading of _Ianto's Job_ is a list of five separate titles:

  * _Office Manager_
  * _Chief Archivist_
  * _Senior Researcher_
  * _Reconnaissance Officer_
  * _Pest Control Specialist (Myfanwy and Janet)_



and underneath, like the universe mocking him, the word _COMPENSATION_ with a figure that settles at seven times the amount he is currently being paid. And as his brow furrows at that number, he pulls up the calculator and does a quick check and realises where the number in his chequeing account came from. Four months of back pay. He stares at it like it's something alive.

He needs to see Jack. He needs to see Jack now.

He has no idea what he's going to say to him.


	32. Monday Afternoon - Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um. nsfw.

Jack has no idea what it is, but it's large and it's furry and it seems to be vibrating and the noise— _the noise—_ it seeps into the ground and rumbles up his bones through his feet. Every muscle in his body feels like it's being shaken loose at once and the only time he's felt this boneless was that time on Centuri VII with the catkind who had purred during sex. There had been two of them. There had been knotting. It had been glorious. Jack had felt as though his entire body was coming apart from his arsehole inwards.

 _"Guys?"_ Tosh's voice comes in over the comms. _"I'm getting some weird readings on this one."_

Jack blinks his eyes, trying to clear them. To either side, Owen and Gwen are heavy-lidded and swaying where they stand. Owen has a beatific smile on his face. Gwen's mouth is half-open and she looks like she's about to orgasm. Jack tries very hard not to think about that.

"Yeah," Jack says, tearing his eyes from Gwen who has started making small noises in the back of her throat. Owen's face has screwed up in concentration now, as if something incredibly complex and fascinating is happening inside him. It probably is. Jack tries not to think about that either for very different reasons. "I think I know what this is," he says.

 _"Myfanwy is getting excited, Jack,"_ Tosh says and she sounds a little breathless and Jack doesn't think Myfanwy is the only one.

"Okay," he says firmly, mostly to himself. The liquid heat of his own pleasure is starting to pool at the bottom of his spine and he considers riding it out. But apart from the sheer embarrassment of it, he isn't sure Gwen will ever forgive him if he stands by and lets her be gotten off by a furry alien in the middle of a golf course.

There is a small sound then, gutting and breathless, and he looks over at her.

_Okay. Possibly too late for that._

"Jack," Gwen whimpers and Jack swallows hard.

"Right," he says. "Tosh, turn off audio for the next few minutes. This one won't be a problem."

 _"Are you sure?"_ Tosh asks and her voice is just a little bit too high and strained and in the background he hears the shriek of the pterodactyl.

"As long as you're sure," Jack says and tries not to laugh and he can almost hear her blushing in the silence. He also notes that she doesn't turn off the comms.

"Okay my fuzzy friend," he says and walks forward. The vibrations become more intense the closer he gets and by the time he reaches it, sweating and panting, he is trying to ignore the way his hips seem to be trying to move themselves independently of the rest of his body. "Okay," he breathes. "Okay, you're okay," and he starts to stroke it and as soon as he does the vibrations start to ease off, the thing calming and stilling beneath his hand. "That's it," he croons. "You're okay."

"Well, shit," he hears Owen say from behind him and he glances over his shoulder to find both him and Gwen blinking at him as if waking up from a daze. Gwen's face is bright red and there's a damp spot on the front of Owen's trousers.

"Jack," Gwen says and her voice is low and dangerous. "What the hell is that thing?"

"I have no idea," Jack says, still stroking it. It's fur is soft and fine and it's almost as therapeutic as its purrs had been. "I can hazard a guess, though."

"Jack," she says and the threat is still there. "What did it do to us?"

"Pretty fucking obvious, I'd think," Owen says and he shifts uncomfortably, plucking at the front of his trousers and grimacing. "Don't suppose we can hold on to that one for a while?"

"Owen!" Gwen snaps.

"It seems to use it as a defence mechanism," Jack says, hoping to interrupt the budding argument. "It's calm now so we should be alright to bring it back to the Hub till we figure something out."

"We can't bring it back," Gwen says. "What if it does it again?"

"Then someone will just have to give it a good stroke," Jack says with a wink and he watches the crimson flooding her face again.

It's quite light in spite of its size and they manage to load it into the backseat of the SUV without a problem. Gwen refuses to sit in the back with it so Owen takes his turn, stroking it easily while running his scanner over it, trying to pick up some kind of reading they can work with.

"It's hard to tell since we have no idea what the hell it is, but it's definitely sentient and I reckon it's dying."

"Dying?" Jack repeats.

"Rift did it in if I had to take a guess. There's not much in the way of protection, no skeletal support. Organs or...whatever...have been pulverised."

"Shit."

"I'll be able to tell for sure once we get it back to the Hub."

"Where did it come from?" Gwen asks. She's looking at Jack, considerably calmer now.

"I don't know. Never seen one."

"You seemed to know what to do," she presses and she's looking at him challengingly, daring him to disagree.

"Just a guess. Figured it must be terrified and you gotta admit it's a hell of a defence mechanism. Use it myself sometimes."

She is still watching him and he can feel the demand of her attention pressing against him. "What?" he says, and her attention snaps away.

"Nothing," she says but it's the kind of _'nothing'_ that really means _'everything'_ and when they get to the Hub she is tense and she refuses to look at him.

Whatever the thing is, it's definitely dying. On the autopsy table it starts to vibrate again and only Jack's voice and Jack's hand, reassuring it as Owen takes scans and readings, keeps it still enough for them to work.

"It's in pain," Owen says finally and he looks at Jack and there's the question in his eye. Jack nods and there's relief and regret in the doctor's face as he pulls up the syringe and Jack keeps talking to it, keeps stroking it as the needle goes in, as the plunger is depressed, and when Jack takes his hand away a few minutes later the vibrations don't restart.

"Fuck," Owen says under his breath and turns away, busying himself with latex gloves and scalpels, and Jack reads the defeat in every line of his body. He doesn't say anything but rests a hand on Owen's shoulder, feels the muscle tighten and tense under his palm, and he leaves him to his job.

Tosh and Gwen are watching at the railing, Gwen's face pulled into a frown as she watches Owen get ready for the autopsy. As Jack passes, Tosh grabs onto his sleeve.

"I need to show you something," she says quietly and when Gwen looks at them curiously Jack signals her to stay where she is and follows Tosh back to her station.

She punches in a command and the CCTV for the Quay pops up. "There," she says, pointing at a figure on a bench near the tourist centre entrance, but the gesture is unnecessary. Jack recognises that lone figure immediately.

"Shit," he says, and doesn't know why he's so surprised to see him.

"Do you want me to—" Tosh offers uncertainly, but Jack waves the words aside.

"No. I just didn't think—" He stops. Didn't think what? Didn't think he'd come by before calling? Didn't think he'd want to acknowledge it at all? Didn't think he'd show up in the middle of the afternoon when any of the team were around to spot him? "Close down that footage," he says to Tosh. "And don't tell the others."

"Are you going out to him?" Tosh asks and her voice is carefully neutral, and he's about to answer when behind him Gwen's voice rises up.

"Is that Ianto? What's he doing here, Jack?"

He turns to face her and he feels his usual smile carefully settling on his face, his own mask, just like Ianto's. "No idea," he says. "Guess I should go ask him."

"Do you want me to talk to him?" Gwen asks and the concern on her face is so palpable that it could probably be siphoned off and sold.

"Why?" Jack asks as casually as he can and bounds past her, heading for the cog door.

Gwen looks stymied. "What you told me, remember? Jack, he needs sympathy, not to be yelled at!"

"I want you all to stay in here," he says as the door slides open and the alarm blares.

"What if there's a Rift warning?" Gwen calls after him. "Aren't we supposed to let you know?"

"Just leave it alone, Gwen!" he shouts back and lets the door roll closed behind him, feeling nothing but guilty relief when it shuts her out.

 _This is why you hired her,_ he reminds himself. _This is why she's here. To question you, to push you. Don't forget that._

All the same, he thinks as he makes his way up through the tunnels and into daylight, there's something refreshing about the silence of Ianto Jones.


	33. Monday Afternoon - Jack Continued

Ianto doesn't look up when Jack sits down beside him. He is staring at his lap, one hand clutched at the edges of the computer, the other holding his phone, a thumb poised over the screen. He is the picture of indecision and Jack resists the urge to reach over and snatch the phone away from him. He's irritated and he doesn't know why. Annoyed because Ianto should have called first and didn't. Annoyed because Tosh and Gwen have seen him here and that means questions that Jack isn't ready to answer yet. But also annoyed because suddenly, with Ianto here exposed, Jack feels oddly exposed too, as if Ianto's presence is announcing something about himself and he doesn't know what it is but he suspects it will end up being something he doesn't want known.

So Jack doesn't say anything, both out of a perverse desire to wait Ianto out and a genuine loss as to what to actually say. This is Ianto's meeting. Jack is lost here without a cue.

"Sorry," Ianto finally says, and in spite of Jack's annoyance he doesn't actually know what Ianto is apologising for.

"Tosh saw you," Jack says because he doesn't know what to answer. "And Gwen."

Ianto rolls his eyes. "Sorry," he says again.

Jack shrugs. "It's okay. Gwen wants to talk to you."

The derision in Ianto's face startles Jack but Ianto doesn't reply, just stares at his phone and swipes an idle thumb across its screen.

Jack takes a breath. "Look, Ianto—"

"I didn't mean it, you know."

Jack frowns, trying to trace this thought and can't. "Mean what?"

 _"Monster,"_ Ianto hisses and when he looks at Jack there is trepidation and defiance in his face. "I didn't mean it. So if you're trying to prove something—"

"No. No that's not what this is."

"What is it then, Jack? What is this?" And for a second Jack thinks he's talking about _them,_ the tension sparking between them, but Ianto is nodding at the laptop and Jack understands.

"The money?"

"You paid my debt, Jack. Ten thousand pounds."

"I do expect you to pay it back, you know."

Ianto ignores him. "There's twenty-four thousand pounds sitting in my chequeing account that isn't mine."

"Back pay."

"I figured that. It's too much."

"That's not up to you."

"That's more than what Gwen makes."

"How do you know what Gwen makes?"

"I know everything Jack. Owen gets as much as this."

"You do more work than he does."

"He's a _doctor,_ Jack!"

"And you're Senior Archivist, Officer Manager, Reconnaissance Officer—"

"I know, I read the bloody job description."

"You think what Owen does is worth more than what you do?"

"Of course I do, Jack. I'm not an idiot."

"You _are_ a fucking idiot. Do you know how many doctors there are in the world?"

"Not off the top of my head."

"Enough. Do you know how many alien artefact specialists there are?"

"Thirteen, not including you or the Doctor. I'm not one of them, Jack."

"Yes you are."

"I only know what's in the archives."

"And who was it who built the archives?"

"That's not the same thing."

"Yes, it is! How do you think the other thirteen found out the things they did? By travelling through space and time? No, they read reports and pressed buttons and collected information. This is how it's done, Ianto. You're an authority on this, whether you want to admit it or not. And considering that on top of that you also know how to disguise and mutilate dead bodies, hack into computer systems, create believable cover stories, get us exactly where we need to be with all the information we need to be there, and then still find time to do all the filing, paperwork, cleaning, and maintenance, not to mention making us all coffee, I'd say I should probably be paying you more. Hell you should probably be paid more than me!"

Ianto is staring at the laptop, at the phone, his knuckles white where they grip the edges. "Yeah, well," he mutters, "You don't actually do anything."

Jack gives a snort and punches him in the shoulder. "This isn't negotiable, Ianto."

"It's too much."

"It's what you deserve."

"Jesus Christ, Jack, I nearly killed you all!"

"This _job_ nearly kills us all, Ianto. This is what we signed up for. Every time I take you out of the Hub I nearly kill you all. Every time something comes through the Rift and I don't react fast enough or I don't have enough information or I make a mistake I nearly kill you all. That's what it is, Ianto. That's Torchwood."

"Stop it! Stop patronising me! That's not the same thing and you know it!"

"Fine, yes, I know it. I know it, Ianto! But I also know it's never going to happen again and do you know why?"

Ianto glares at him sullenly and Jack is on his feet, kneeling before him on the ground. He can feel the damp seeping in through his trousers and he doesn't care, takes Ianto's shoulders and shakes him hard. He wants to draw him inwards, wants to enfold him and protect him and keep him safe, keep all of them safe. But he can't do that, so he just shakes him instead and forces him to look him in the eye. "I know," he says. "Because Lisa is _dead,_ Ianto. I know because I trust you to come to me next time. I know because you were scared and you were grieving and you regretted every single second of it but that you would still do it again without a single thought and _I know that, Ianto._ And that's why I trust you."

"Because I'd betray you again?"

"Because I know _why_ you'd betray me again. And it's not going to happen again. I'm not going to let it."

"It doesn't work that way."

"Then promise me."

"No. Fuck you," and Ianto tries to pull away but Jack doesn't let him, grabs his face between his hands and stares at him while Ianto's eyes flicker up, down, trying to get away.

"Fine," Jack says. "I'll promise you. I promise that I'll trust you and that you can trust me and that if anything ever happens like this again you will come to me because I will understand and I will do everything in my power to help you."

"Jack, don't—"

"Fuck you, Ianto. You can't stop me. I promise you and I will make it happen."

They are staring at each other, faces eight inches apart. Too close. Too far. The tension doesn't go away but it _changes_ and both of them can feel it when it happens, when anger turns into something else and Jack watches, fascinated, as the tip of Ianto's tongue darts out, leaving a gleaming trail of moisture across his lips. Jack could kiss him. It would be so easy. And Ianto _wants_ it.

And then just as suddenly the tension shifts again, Ianto pulls back, his eyes flickering downwards and away and Jack lets his hands fall.

"What are we, twelve?" Ianto scoffs and his voice is shaking. There's a sheen in his eyes and he fiercely blinks it away.

"If you're going to keep acting like it," Jack says, giving it to him, allowing him to retreat. He rises, goes back to the bench and sits and waits for Ianto to say something or to walk away.

"Jesus bloody Christ," Ianto says. "What the hell do I do with twenty-four thousand pounds."

"Get a flat?"

"Pay you back."

"You don't have to do it right away."

"I want to. I can't believe you paid my debts."

"I just loaned it to you. And if I'd paid you properly when you started you wouldn't have had those debts."

"Yes I would. It just means I could have spent more."

Jack is silent for a second, digesting that. "Well. Then I'm glad I didn't pay you more."

Ianto gives a huff and Jack sees him roll his eyes. "I'm not," Ianto says, but it's almost soundless and Jack doesn't answer.

Instead, he stands up, holds a hand out for Ianto who ignores it and rises on his own.

"I need food. And coffee," Jack says. "Join me?"

Ianto hesitates for only a second. "I want to work—"

"We can work and eat. Have you looked into Flat Holm some more? You can update me."

He can see it in Ianto's face, that he wants to refuse. His mask is flickering across his face but his expression keeps forcing it down again and the vulnerability makes Jack want to tell him it's okay, but he doesn't. Just takes a step back, an expectant look on his face. "You can always write a report and leave it on my desk," he suggests and sees Ianto actually considering it and curses himself.

"Yes, fine," Ianto says. "But I just had lunch."

"Dinner it is, then," Jack says with a grin.

"It's four o'clock."

"Early dinner. Come on, I know a place."

"Of course you do," Ianto sighs, and there is reluctance and exasperation in his voice but when Jack starts to walk Ianto follows him nonetheless.


	34. Monday Evening - Jack

It's seven by the time Jack returns to the Hub, head still firmly entrenched in Flat Holm and Ianto Jones, mind whirling with numbers and projections. He wonders why he had needed Ianto to do these things in the first place, but he knows the answer to that. He forgets, or he's busy, or he just can't be bothered, or it simply gets set aside by the constant rounds of saving-the-world. He's needed an Ianto for years now, if only he'd had to brains to see it.

He expects to be alone when he arrives back. Apart from the furry vibrating creature the afternoon had been quiet. He'd had his wrist strap set to alert him but nothing had come through and he fully expects the others to have gone home. However, when the lift descends past the lip of the roof, he can see them all, sitting in the central area and waiting for him. He stifles a sigh and tries to look pleased to see them. It probably comes out nearer to wary.

He's not even off the lift yet before Gwen steps forward. There is something endearingly determined on her wide open face and he wonders not for the first time how she ever managed to be a cop with every single thought flittering across her expression like a neon sign. "What's going on with you two?" she says and it comes out as an accusation and Jack immediately feels his back go up, endearing or not. He glances at the other two, hovering close behind in uncertain support: Tosh is quiet but the look on her face betrays her interest and Owen's expression is an open sneer.

Jack looks at them all, tries to decide what to answer. It takes him a few seconds to realise that he doesn't owe them any answer at all.

"Shouldn't you all be at home?" he asks and deliberately steps past them.

"Jack!"

Gwen's voice is sharp with outrage.

"Leave him alone, PC Cooper," Owen drawls. "Clearly he wants to keep his dirty little secrets to himself."

Jack freezes. The whole Hub freezes. He turns, slowly, and he can feel a glimmer of satisfaction at the flash of fear on their faces.

"Care to clarify, Owen?" Jack asks.

For a moment it looks like Owen isn't going to answer. But Tosh is wide-eyed and trying to become invisible and Gwen's expression is so eloquent that Jack has no doubt whatsoever that whatever he says now this is what they've already decided to believe.

He sees the moment that Owen decides to speak, his eyes darting from Tosh to Gwen as if trying to bolster his nerve. "Alright, fine," Owen snaps and steps forward, the offensive chosen. "You can shag whoever the hell you want, _Captain,_ that's not our bloody business. But when your part-time-shag starts trying to kill the rest of us that's when it becomes our problem, see? So you tell us, fearless leader, what the hell is going on between you two?"

For a single breathless moment, Jack wants to shoot him. Would have before the Doctor. Before Rose. At any number of times during his long and excruciating life he would have had no hesitation in picking up a gun and putting a bullet between Owen's eyes. Stop this problem at the start, make it clear exactly where everyone stands and it's at the end of his gun, it's where he puts them.

But that isn't him. Not right now, not with these people. None of them have seen that side of Captain Jack Harkness, none of these people have met that man that he has been, that he might become again. Right now, in this moment, he wouldn't shoot Owen Harper and it takes a few seconds, half a dozen resounding beats of a heart that is abruptly too loud, but he remembers that.

And then, because he does remember who he's supposed to be right now, he slides the mask in place, raises an eyebrow and smiles. "Why?" he asks. "Interested in joining us?" and he gives Owen a wink and walks away. But he thinks of that flash of fear in those seconds before he had remembered, the quick paling of Owen's already pasty face as he'd taken a physical step backwards, and Jack feels a vicious satisfaction in knowing that he is responsible for having put it there.

He leaves his office door open, not as a welcome but as a message that he doesn't need to hide himself from them because there is nothing they can do. And yet, five minutes later, after the door alarm's gone off once, he hears footsteps and there is Gwen, looking flushed and uncertain.

"Jack?"

He looks at her from under his eyebrows but doesn't say anything, waits for her to come in because he knows she will. And she does, approaching his desk and settling herself in the chair across from him and once again he's playing the waiting game with her and once again she cracks first.

"Jack." A statement, as if simply saying his name in that tone of voice will somehow force his hand.

"I'm busy, Gwen."

"You're always busy these days."

He doesn't say anything, waits for her to get to the point. He is looking at the papers on his desk and on top of the pile is a notepad with names scribbled on it in his own handwriting. _Matthew Smith. Chantoya Miller. Gandhik Chatterjee. Sarah Cohen._ Email addresses scribbled in beside them, last known locations, which ones he might be able to actually help.

"You're not even listening to me," Gwen says and Jack makes himself look at her but he's tired, has no desire to be having this conversation with her.

"Gwen—"

"This is why I'm here, Jack!" she says and it's too loud, too angry. Her eyes are wide and there's an accusation there that he's already gotten used to seeing from her. "You brought me on for this, you can't push me away now!"

"I'm not pushing—"

"Yes, you are. Tell me what's going on!"

And he snaps, frustration and tiredness and _helplessness_ because there's nothing he can do and Gwen, bloody beautiful Gwen actually believes that there is something in this situation that can be fixed. "Nothing, Gwen!" he shouts, far louder than he meant. "There is nothing going on! There is nothing to tell you! Ianto is _sad!"_

She glares at him but he can see her trying to restrain herself from snapping back. "Can't you talk to him?" she finally says.

And he almost laughs. "I am! But this isn't something you can talk away."

"There has to be something we can do,"

And god help her she actually believes that. "There isn't. Now what do you want Gwen because I actually am busy."

She flinches back as if he's struck her and he feels a momentary twinge of guilt. He almost reaches for her. How _easy_ it would be. Out of nowhere, he remembers the noises she had made that afternoon, his name rasped out in that tone, and it would be so _easy._ After that unsatisfying wank the night before the idea of burying himself in something hot and wanting and alive is almost too much to bear. He needs to touch someone soon or he's going to explode. It doesn't even have to be sex. He just needs to _touch_ because he's so lost right now he doesn't know where he's going.

And something transfers, something shows in his face because her eyes have gone wide and dark and she's leaning forward just that little bit, showing she's open, she's game. It would be so, so easy to reach across to her, so easy to...

"Rhys is waiting," he says instead, and even in his own ears his voice sounds hoarse. He looks down at the notepad and reads out the names written there and he picks up his pen, scribbling something meaningless in the margins. He hears Gwen get up, hears the inhalation as she tries to think of something to say.

"Goodnight, Gwen," he says, firmly this time, and he listens to her breath rush out again, the quick tap of her footsteps leaving his office and several minutes later the door alarm as the cog rolls open and shut. And Jack stares down at the notepad, at the squiggles on the edge of the paper, at the list of names and their notations, and at the bottom of the list the latest one, added only now: _Ianto Jones._


	35. Monday Night - Ianto

He is sitting at the hotel bar and he is counting the hours down. The laptop is back in his room. There is just his phone, it's screen flashing to life every time he touches it, showing the clock ticking forward. In front of him, a line of drinks that haven't been touched yet.

At nine o'clock he picks one up, throws it back, wheezing at the burn of it in his throat, tracing its way to his belly. Nine o'clock. Doctor Tanizaki has arrived at the tourist centre. He is neat and trim and it doesn't show in any way that he's spent the last three days sitting in a hotel room, waiting for Ianto's call to tell him that the coast is clear.

Ten past nine and he takes another drink. Easier this time as it follows the other, and he is pressing his lips to Lisa's cold ones, the last time he will ever touch her like this, if only he knew.

At nine fifty-five the alarms on the life support machines in the autopsy bay are going off and he drinks as he turns to Tanizaki and says _"if you've killed her..."_

And at nine fifty-six she is looking at him. Alive. _Alive._ Unconnected to any machine and _alive._ And he drinks because of that hope, because of that wild unbreathing moment, as he remembers a hundred conversations, a thousand hopes, a future he didn't think he had suddenly coming to pass.

And at nine fifty-seven he drinks again because he's spotted the four figures walking across the Plass towards them and though he doesn't know it, not then, it's the end. It's the end of the world all over again.

At ten oh one he is adjusting his tie and pretending that life has gone on. He drinks as in his head Jack asks him for coffee and with a smile that hides nothing, that he can feel shattering on his face, he says yes.

At ten oh three the lights flicker and he drinks as he lies to Jack.

At ten oh five he is kneeling in the blood beside Doctor Tanizaki and when Lisa speaks he hears the metal in her voice and he tries desperately to pretend that it's not there. He drinks and he drinks again because this was the moment he had lost her. This was the moment he had been lost.

At twelve minutes past ten, Doctor Tanizaki's ruined face is staring up at him from the flickering shadows of the failing lights and he tries to reach for another drink but the world is shifting in front of his eyes, nothing is staying still. He squeezes them shut and tries to right it but it only makes it worse and he can feel the edges of his seat slipping away as he tries to figure out what direction _up_ is in.

And then there are arms and a familiar smell and Jack's voice too loud in his ear.

"Whoa, there! Thought you learnt you lesson after last time we did this."

"Fuck off," he tries to say but his tongue has gone numb and the words don't sound right.

"Yeah, I'd love to, unfortunately management called so you're just going to have to put up with me."

"Lisa," Ianto says because it's important, _this is important,_ but Jack's smell is everywhere and all he can see when he closes his eyes is blood and that smell, heat and sand and salt water, is the only thing that's keeping him from screaming. "I'm sorry," he says, "This is all my fault."

He doesn't remember going upstairs. He doesn't remember the lift up or Jack fumbling at his clothes, stripping him of his outer layers before pushing him down in his bed. He doesn't remember passing out but he remembers waking up, his stomach turning itself inside out and the alcohol stinging just as much on the way up as it had on the way down. He remembers a hand, cool against his forehead as he sobs, hanging over the edge of the bed with his head over the bin. He remembers the solid heat of a thigh against him and he remembers pressing into it, his head seeking the unquestionable presence of Jack and the smell of him is driving out the reek of Lisa dying all over again in his mind.

He remembers falling asleep, his head in that lap and the sound of Jack's voice telling him he's safe and he feels it. For the first time in months he feels it, and he let's himself believe it just like he had in his dream.

"This is my fault," he thinks he says, and Jack's hand is cool on his face, the lips pressed to his temple warm.

"I know," he thinks Jack says as Ianto drifts off again. "Mine too."


	36. Tuesday Morning - Ianto

Ianto opens his eyes and the world hasn't ended. There is light and it's so bright that it hurts. He gags, because there's nothing left in him to vomit up. He shivers but it's warm. His clothes are sticking to him and he's covered in sweat but he doesn't want to move. He never wants to move again. His head is pounding so hard every beat of his heart is a rush of noise in his ears, but there's a weight pressing against him, something solid at his back and its the only thing that makes him feel any better. He pushes himself into it and feels it respond, gathering him in and holding him there.

"Hey," Jack says and his voice is soft and hoarse.

"I think I died," Ianto croaks.

There is the soft breath of laughter against his ear. "Still here I'm afraid. How are you feeling?"

"Like I drank too much vodka."

Another breath. "There's a reason for that."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"It happens."

"How come you came?"

"Management called. I sort of may have put you on a watch list?"

"Ah."

"Think you can handle some water?"

"Coffee?"

"After. I brought the miracle pill."

"Bless you."

Another huff of laughter and then something softer, more solid: a brush of lips against his neck. "I have to get up," Jack says in his ear and Ianto realises he's holding Jack's arm against his chest.

"Sorry," he mumbles, too miserable to even blush. Jack doesn't say anything but there's another soft pressure just under his ear and then Jack is pulling away, his hand lingering on Ianto's side as he goes.

"How about a bath?" Jack says as he leaves the room. Ianto watches him go through squinted eyes. He's in vest and trousers and it's the first time it's occurred to Ianto to wonder if he's naked. He's not. His shirt is gone but like Jack he is still wearing the vest from underneath and his shorts are still safely in place though his trousers are in a heap near the door. He wonders if he's disappointed or thankful. He hears the sound of the water being turned on in the tub and a moment later Jack returns, carrying a glass of water.

"You'll have to sit up," he says, sitting on the side of the bed and Ianto curls in around him like a cat.

"Just shoot me," he moans, shivering into Jack's warmth. "It's easier."

"Up. In half an hour you won't even remember what vodka tastes like anymore."

Ianto groans but he obeys the pressure of Jack's hand under his arm and he forces himself up onto his elbow, taking the powdery white pill and swallowing it down with the water before gingerly collapsing back into the sheets. He closes his eyes and his fingers curl around the material of Jack's trousers, holding him there.

He must fall asleep again because the next thing he knows a hand on his cheek is stroking him awake and Jack is bending over him, too near, and Ianto is abruptly aware of the fact that he reeks of vomit and vodka and sour sweat and that his mouth feels like something has died in it and he's absolutely _starving._

"Oh god," he gasps. "I'm disgusting," and Jack laughs.

"Come on, water's hot. Feel better?"

"Apart from smelling like something from Owen's autopsy table, just great."

"Fantastic. I'll order breakfast. Go get cleaned up. Bacon? Sausage? Eggs? Toast? Tomato?"

"Yes. All of it. Ask if they can send up extra grease. Just a pot. A pot of grease. That's it. And coffee. Coffee and grease."

Jack grins and leaves him and Ianto, dragging himself upright on aching muscles totters into the bathroom. It's hot and humid and he shuts the door to keep the warmth inside. He brushes his teeth first, trying to grasp some last lingering edge of humanity, then stripping himself of vest and boxers he slides himself into the hot water. He shudders with relief as the heat starts to seep through his skin and into his bones. He lets his head slip under the water and when he comes back up to the air everything feels better and the world is liveable again. He sighs and it comes out a little too loud, and little too much like a moan.

As he lies there, the world slowly coming back, he tries to remember last night. There are bits of it, pieces of memory that fit together like a 20 year old jigsaw found in a street sale. He remembers the vodka. Oh god does he remember the vodka. He remembers _remembering_ and he shuts that out, puts it in a box and builds a wall around it because miracle pill or not he's going to start vomiting again if he doesn't. And he remembers Jack. He remembers vomiting into a bin and a hand on his back, in his hair, a voice telling him it will be okay. He remembers believing that voice and he snorts because if that was the case then he must have been drunk. It's more than a week now. Last week, at this time, she was already dead. It's been a week and he's still alive. And she's not. But...

But _he is._

And it hits him, fully, just how grateful he is for that. _He doesn't want to be dead._

He wants to be alive. And lying in the tub, his skin pink from the heat, he's incredibly aware of his body, of every ache and bruise, of the places where he dips and the places where he juts out, a landscape done in soft lines, every curve and plane connected to another and he trails a hand across it feeling his own skin, the roughness of contusions that haven't yet healed. He presses his fingers into bruises and savours the dull pain and he digs a finger nail into a half-healed cut and it's sharp and bright and vivid. He lets his hand move lower, lets it slide between his legs and he watches down the prospect of his body as he hardens in the palm of his own hand, the entire world changing before his eyes.

He sighs and once again it's a little too loud but it's okay. He lets it come anyway and he touches himself, running a wet hand over his length and he feels it harden further, marvelling at the oddity of human flesh. He forms a fist around himself and pushes his hips up, watching his penis breach the space between his fingers and it's the most erotic thing he's ever seen, his own body, alive. He pushes his hips up again, and again, and on the fourth time he's moaning as he comes because it's been too long, too much has happened since he's been touched in this way and the release is a living thing that fountains up through him and emerges as a cry.

He lays there panting, breathing in the smell of his own sex, the humidity in the bathroom turning it to fog in the air. He lays there till the water starts to cool and then pulls himself up, let's the water drain around him as he stands under the spray of the shower and washes last night away, last week, the last months. And when he finally steps out again he is clean. He is human.


	37. Tuesday Morning - Jack

When Jack hears the first moan he thinks he's mistaken. It's muffled and breathy and the silence that follows it is almost complete. And yet he freezes, his whole body coming to a stop mid-motion, his head swivelling towards the bathroom door and his ears cocked for the slightest sound.

He thinks he's mistaken. Except that he hears the slosh of water then, the gentle lap of small waves against the porcelain wall and he recognises the motion of skin on skin that produces it. He has stopped breathing by now and he hasn't noticed yet.

When the second moan comes he is sure. Has heard that sound once before, that sigh of release, when he'd pushed a drunk and desperate Ianto up against a wall and kissed him till he couldn't stop.

He is moving towards the door before he can think about it, his hand out, and he just barely stops himself, his fingers brushing the wood panel. He inhales sharply trying to calm himself, but the sounds, suggestions from across the room, are certain here and he gives a shaky breath, leaning his forehead against the cool surface and closing his eyes. He listens to the gentle slap of water, the tiniest whine filtering through to him from the other side of the door, and he is reaching for himself without realising he's doing it, sliding a hand into the front of his trousers. He bites back a gasp, terrified of being heard, but there is no pause in the sounds, no indication that Ianto has considered Jack's presence whatsoever.

It doesn't last long. Not nearly long enough. He hears the moment when the movement of water and flesh start to shift into something more determined. He hears the bitten off moan and then another moan, louder, and Jack can count exactly how many strokes it takes for Ianto to bring himself off. Four. Only four. And then there's a cry, like something being born or something dying, and then the shallow panting of a man who hasn't yet made it back to the world. Jack leans against the door with his eyes closed, his own erection pressed into the palm of his hand, and struggles to breathe.

When he hears that last sigh, the sound of something replete, he realises suddenly that he is too close. Ianto, no longer distracted, will hear him too easily and with a silent step Jack moves away, goes to the bed where the sheets still smell of sweat and alcohol. He needs a shower anyway and the sheets need changing, but for now they are reeking of Ianto, _he_ is reeking of Ianto. He lays down on his back and with one ear cocked towards the bathroom, he unbuttons his trousers and touches himself. He closes his eyes and thinks of the sounds that Ianto makes. He breathes in the smell of him and it's everywhere and he imagines Ianto walking in, coming out of the bathroom to find him here, touching himself on the bed they'd shared. He imagines Ianto kneeling at his side, that smaller hand around his own. He imagines a mouth, those moans stifled by his penis pushing in past full lips. He imagines Ianto rising up, straddling him and blue eyes hooded and glazed, holding onto Jack's as he then sinks down again, his heat encompassing and swallowing Jack whole.

And Jack comes, imagining that body pliant above him, imagining himself buried inside it, marking it from the inside. He imagines Ianto's own face as he must look when he comes, utterly uncontrolled, every vestige of pretence put away and young, so young and so beautiful. Jack wants to see that face, slack and unmasked just for him. He wants to hold it down with his lips and taste it with his tongue, pulling Ianto down towards him and holding him there as they both come back to earth. He can still feel the heat of Ianto's body tight against his, the feel of him in his arms, and as he lies there in the bed they'd shared he imagines what it would be like to hold him like that after making love, drunk off of each others sweat and heat.

He lays there until he hears the sound of the shower, the rush of the spray on the half full tub. He doesn't know how long it's been but he realises with a start that he hasn't ordered breakfast yet and that he's still lying in their filthy sheets, his hand sticky with his own come. He scrambles up because he doesn't know what will happen should Ianto actually find him like this, but he thinks of last night, of simply holding him, of Ianto in his unconscious state pressing back into Jack like he was the safest thing in the world, and he remembers resisting the urge to slide his hands beneath vest and shorts, stripping his own clothes off and simply _touching,_ simply feeling someone else's skin against his, and Jack knows he doesn't want to risk this. This. Whatever this fragile thing is that exists between them. He remembers Ianto's certainty while he'd been drunk that first time. He remembers it even more vividly on Flat Holm. But though it was barely two days ago it feels like lifetimes, as if eras have passed since Ianto had shuddered a breath and with lips pink and swollen from Jack's had said, _"Tomorrow?"_ This, what this is, is far more intimate than sex will ever be and it fills something in him, centring him, and something inside him is settled this morning that hasn't been settled for weeks.

When Ianto comes out Jack is collected and smiling easily, one of Ianto's books in his hand.

"Louise Penny, huh? Never took you for a mystery fan."

Ianto is flushed and relaxed and the smile he returns is heartstopping and breathtaking, too close to the picture Jack had so recently had in his head, and he finds himself looking quickly away, focusing on the incomprehensible text before him.

"She's good," Ianto says easily. He looks around. "You order?"

"Oh, uh. Thought we'd go down instead. Give the staff some time to clean up."

"Oh, right. Sure. You going to shower first?"

"Yep," Jack says and grins at the quickly hidden relief on Ianto's face.

"Sorry," Ianto says sheepishly. "But you smell like me."

Jack laughs out loud. "Maybe I like that," he says, coming closer, a little too close, and he reaches out, puts a hand on Ianto's hip and Ianto blushes but he doesn't pull away.

"Yeah, I didn't mean that in a good way," Ianto says and grimaces. "Hurry up, I'm hungry," and he steps away, but Jack doesn't miss the pressure of his hip momentarily leaning into Jack's hand and as Jack goes into the bathroom to clean up he is thankful he'd had a chance to wank before this. Ianto would have had his own audio show otherwise.


	38. Tuesday Afternoon - Ianto

Breakfast doesn't happen until eleven and by then Jack's phone has trilled with a dozen separate messages. He reads each one, grimacing, and responds to three.

Ianto doesn't ask. Doesn't need to. It's eleven o'clock on a Tuesday morning and Jack's spent the entire night and morning here. With Ianto. Three texts sent off, three members of the team. The messages keep coming but Jack ignores them. The wrist band has been silent. Ianto knows because he's been keeping an eye on it, wondering what happens when it goes off, if Jack will go haring off. If he'll look regretful or if he'll look eager. But the question doesn't get tested and it's twelve, lingering over the last cup of coffee, when they finally get to their feet and say goodbye.

It's an oddly strained farewell. There is a moment where Ianto leans forward and then, realising what he's doing, pulls back again. He flushes, stammering, and Jack just grins at him, puts a hand around his neck and pulls him forward again and when they kiss it's in the middle of the hotel lobby and Ianto has never been so embarrassed and so turned on in his life. The entire world suddenly stops and stares at him and he rotates in the centre of the universe while Jack's tongue slides over his bottom lip.

And then he's pulling back, gasping for air, and Jack is grinning and Ianto doesn't look around him, doesn't dare.

"I'll see you tonight," Jack says, and there is a promise laden in those words and Ianto shivers and can feel his face transforming, his mask pulling back up, covering him. Slowly, with immense difficulty, he pushes the universe away again.

"Yes, sir?" he says with that small smile he's perfected and Jack throws back his head and laughs. He walks away then and Ianto doesn't watch him go.

He goes to his room but is too restless to work. He sits over the laptop staring at the same three lines over and over again until he finally gives up. He is unsettled, playing that last kiss over and over in his mind. He closes his eyes and tries to savour it but all he feels is the apprehension that someone had seen them, that he'd been watched, and finally, after an hour of getting nothing accomplished he logs into the Torchwood system and hacks into the security camera footage of the hotel and watches, panning around the lobby as on the grainy screen Jack kisses him in the corner of the screen.

And there's nobody else there. No one had seen them. There is only the concierge behind the desk and they're absorbed on a phone call. No one else looks at them. No one else is there to do it except this single camera lens, and without a qualm Ianto erases the footage and then immediately regrets it because he hadn't even taken the second to watch him and Jack before doing it. It's lost now though, the only witness gone. He can feel himself calm down as he scrubs out his tracks from the system and logs off. Only Tosh would be able to find him and she has no reason to look.

He is able to work after that, feeling himself settle as he sorts through information about hardy plants and perennials, low scrub and rare mosses. He looks for stone masons and begins calling around and finds one willing to do the work at a surprisingly reasonable cost. He arranges to meet them on Thursday and he puts the information in his phone, alongside his meeting with the electrician and the plumber and the interviews with the three potential nursing staff. One of those interviews is for four o'clock today and he prepares himself for that, making a list of questions, things he will need to know balanced against things they will need to know. It's more difficult than he had thought it would be and he finds himself recalling his own recruitment at Torchwood One, the vague questions, the vaguer advert, and then all at once the spill of information he'd only half believed. Not that the idea of aliens was all that startling. He'd seen the spaceships, had watched the news as the mannequins had come to life, had gotten the frantic phone call from Rhi when Johnny and the kids had stood unresponsive on the edge of the roof. He'd stood in the snow afterwards, even all the way in Cardiff, and had known that it wasn't snow at all.

Not only that but he'd grown up in Cardiff. Long before he'd ever considered Torchwood as a valid career choice he'd been in on the joke. When he'd actually become part of the joke, all the way in London, it had been the most surreal day of his life and he remembers going through the interview process trying not to burst out in manic giggles.

It wasn't so funny, as it turned out. Torchwood London was slightly better at camouflaging themselves as ordinary secret service drones and the rather wild and laughable Cardiff branch was a joke compared to London and how very seriously they took themselves. But it was finally getting into those walls and being introduced to the archives, to the artefact room, to the research department, to the lab, that Ianto Jones had quickly learnt to take it very seriously indeed. It wasn't a game and it wasn't a joke and for the first time in his life he'd felt like he'd belonged.

And now, on the other side of the interview table, he tries to figure out how to balance all the things he remembers questioning with all the things that actually need to be known and the process is more complex than he could have guessed. By the time he compiles something workable it's time to leave, and mask firmly settled into place he leaves his hotel room for the world where not so long ago Jack had kissed him goodbye.


	39. Tuesday-Sunday - Jack

Jack doesn't see Ianto that night. He doesn't see him that week at all, the previous lull in the Rift heralding a series of spikes that sends the team scrambling to cover their bases. He stays in touch, making sure to send Ianto texts as things happen around him and he runs himself and everyone else ragged trying to keep up.

But it's not the same and some niggling worry in the back of his mind can't help but replay the kiss in the lobby, that moment he'd pulled back and seen the familiar smile slide into place. It hadn't occurred to him before what that smile had meant. He was so used to seeing it, so used to taking it as Ianto's rote expression that it was only afterwards, walking back to the Hub that he'd wondered if perhaps he missed something that he should have seen. He doesn't know what caused Ianto to shut down but he knows it's only been a week since Lisa died, since _Jack_ had killed her. It's only been four months since Canary Wharf. It's been less than a week since Ianto, drunk out of his senses, had propositioned Jack in the street and kissed him against a wall. Such a short time and while it doesn't surprise him that Ianto had immediately set up his defences, he does wish he knew exactly why.

He doesn't ask. He knows he won't get an answer. But he's worried nonetheless. So he texts, a scattered conversation without a particular beginning or end.

>  
> 
> _Rift alert. AGAIN._
> 
> _**That's what happens when you set up your alien hunting headquarters on top of a rift in time and space. You should have tried Devon if you wanted something quieter.** _
> 
> _Cheeky._
> 
> _**Only since you like it so much.** _
> 
> _Are you flirting with me, Jones Ianto Jones? I'm shocked!_
> 
> _**Liar.** _
> 
> _In a good way of course._
> 
> _**Of course. If you want to flirt in person I'm available for...oh say the next three weeks or so?** _
> 
> _That right? Maybe I'll see you around sometime ;)_
> 
> _**I can't believe you used a winky face.** _
> 
> _;)_
> 
>  

> _This thing has eight legs and one eye and has made the entire Hub smell like popcorn. I have no idea why it's doing that but it's making us all hungry.  
> _
> 
> _P.S. Gwen wants to know where you get those purple things._
> 
> **_If you eat all the food from the SECRET(!!!!) stash remember that one of you is going to have to go out and get more._ **
> 
> **_P.S. You can only get them in parts of Germany. I'll put in an order now but they take about six weeks to ship. Please tell me she didn't eat them all already there was an entire kilo of the things._ **
> 
> _A kilo? Really?  
>  _
> 
> _I'm probably not going to mention that to her._
> 
>  
> 
> **_I've discovered a new coffee place._ **
> 
> _Oh yeah?  
>  _
> 
> _**I'm not telling you where.** _
> 
> _:(_
> 
> _**You'll replace me for sure.** _
> 
> _Yes but can their coffee look good in a suit?  
>  _
> 
> **_No but the barista would._ **
> 
> _Now you have to tell me.  
>  _
> 
> **_Nope.  
>  _ **
> 
> _I could order you to.  
>  _
> 
> _**You could but it wouldn't do you any good.**  
>  _
> 
> _Could I bribe you?_
> 
> **_Sorry, nothing I want. Suddenly I have all this money see..._ **
> 
> _That's just cruel._
> 
> **_;)_ **
> 
>  
> 
> _Myfanwy almost took my hand off I think she misses you._
> 
> **_If you give her too much chocolate she gets grumpy. I told you all this Jack.  
>  _ **
> 
> _I was distracted._
> 
> **_Chocolate on Sunday night only!_ **
> 
> _Janet almost took my head off but I don't think it's because she misses you.  
>  _
> 
> **_Tell Janet I don't miss her either._ **
> 
>  
> 
> _Owen's mood has degenerated with the quality of the coffee. How do you work this machine anyway???_
> 
> **_You DON'T work the machine, Jack._ **
> 
> _Okay I fixed it._
> 
> **_Thank god._ **
> 
> _Nevermind._
> 
> **_I hate you._ **
> 
> _Liar._
> 
> _**That depends on what you've done to my machine.**  
>  _
> 
> _You know if you just told me where that coffee place is you were talking about...  
>  _
> 
> **_I believe there's a Starbucks around the corner._ **
> 
> _Wow. I never realised you had such a streak of brutality in you.  
>  _
> 
> **_Lots of things I have in me._ **
> 
> _Wow.  
>  _
> 
> **_That didn't come out right._ **
> 
> _I beg to differ! ;)  
>  _
> 
> **_Oh shut up._ **
> 
>  
> 
> _**How do you feel about moss?** _
> 
> _Moss?_
> 
> _**For Flat Holm.** _
> 
> _It's...furry?_
> 
> _**Very helpful.** _
> 
> _My pleasure ;) Why moss? This has got the be the tenth time you've mentioned it._
> 
> **_Tell me what else grows on that godforsaken island._ **
> 
> _I'm sending you the name of the horticulturist we consult for the hothouse species._
> 
> **_Received._ _Thank_ _you._ **
> 
> _Thank YOU Jones Ianto Jones._
> 
> **_You need to stop calling me that._ **
> 
> _You love it.  
>  _
> 
> **_I hate it._ **
> 
> _It makes you feel like James Bond.  
>  _
> 
> **_James Bond is an ass. In real life he'd have been fired for gross misconduct and numerous counts of sexual harassment._ **
> 
> _Yeah but he looked good in a suit while doing it!  
>  _
> 
> _Sorry. That...joke may have gotten old?_
> 
> **_Yeah. But I like you saying it anyway._ **
> 
> _I like saying it.  
>  _
> 
> **_Even though it's gross misconduct and sexual harassment._ **
> 
> _Do you want me to stop?  
>  _
> 
> **_No._ **
> 
> _Excellent._
> 
>  
> 
> _Are you awake?_
> 
> **_no_ **
> 
> _Still a liar I see  
>  _
> 
> **_it's 3and im meeting the mason at 7_ **
> 
> _Why so early?_
> 
> **_thats when ppl go to work_ **
> 
> _I'll never get used to this century.  
>  _
> 
> **_Says the man who never sleeps._ **
> 
> _I sleep._
> 
> **_Remember that I'm the person who spied on you for four months in order to sneak a killer robot into your basement._ **
> 
> _Ianto_
> 
> **_I need to sleep. Goodnight Jack._ **
> 
>  
> 
> _I died again. Shit._
> 
> _**u ok?** _
> 
> _Obviously not literally lol_
> 
> **_Obviously not literally. You okay anyway?_ **
> 
> _Fine. It was nothing. Sorry didn't mean to scare you._
> 
> _What do you use to get blood out of the coat?_
> 
> _Not mine._
> 
> _The blood I mean._
> 
> _The coat's mine._
> 
> _**Cold water, just leave it to soak. Sure you're okay?** _
> 
> _Fine._
> 
> _Alert, gotta go._
> 
>  
> 
> _So what are you wearing ;)_
> 
> _**....** _
> 
> _Okay pretend I didn't just send that._
> 
> _**Pretending.** _
> 
>  
> 
> _It's 3:30 in the morning and there's a gelatinous cube in Cardiff Castle. And yes before you ask I have played dnd._
> 
> **_wasnt goingto ask_ **
> 
> _I was really good at it._
> 
> _**good to know** _
> 
> _I was the dungeon master, in case you were wondering._
> 
> _Remind me to show you my dungeon some time ;)_
> 
> _Okay ignore that one too._
> 
> _**ignored  
>  ** _
> 
> _**dont get slime on the coat**  
>  _

 

It feels weirdly like a relationship. It feels exactly like a friendship. But all week, every time the text alert goes off Jack can feel his adrenaline ratchet up and everything is lighter. Everything is a little bit easier.

He knows what this is. He's not an idiot.

He has no idea how to stop it.

>  
> 
> _**Hey.** _
> 
> _:)_
> 
> **_Busy weekend?_ **
> 
> _Busy week. You?  
>  _
> 
> **_Yeah. You've got two new staff and a functioning electric system at Flat Holm however._ **
> 
> _You're incredible.  
>  _
> 
> **_Just organised._ **
> 
> _Sure :)  
>  _
> 
> **_So._ **
> 
> _Miss you..._

 

Jack looks at the screen, the words he's just typed in.

Deletes.

>  
> 
> ~~_Miss you..._ ~~
> 
> _Rift alert. Gotta go._
> 
> _Sorry.  
> _
> 
> **_It's okay. Be careful Jack._ **
> 
> _Always._
> 
> **_Liar._ **
> 
> **_When you have time can we talk?_ **
> 
> _Yeah sorry. I'm trying.  
> _
> 
> **_I know, not your fault. Rift willing._ **
> 
> _Rift willing._
> 
>  

It's entirely possible it's too late anyway.


	40. Monday Morning - Ianto

He smells Jack even before he opens his eyes. It's dark behind his eyelids. Still early, or just very late. He blinks open and finds the glowing numbers on the digital display. Five twenty-three. Early then.

He sighs and rolls over and collides with the solid warmth of another body, which groans and snakes an arm over him, dragging him near.

"What time is it?" Jack mumbles.

"Not five thirty," Ianto says. He is pressed into Jack's side, his face against his shoulder and he realises that Jack isn't wearing a shirt. Out of curiosity more than anything else he fumbles a hand downwards only to be met by the waistband of Jack's shorts and satisfied as to their presence he begins to pull back. Jack groans again and catches at his hand before it can retreat, holding it there, and after a moment of uncertain struggle, Ianto relaxes, lets it happen. He feels the edge of the material against his palm and he slides a finger underneath it without really thinking about what he's doing.

"Didn't know you were coming," Ianto says.

"Later," Jack says. "Sleep."

"You don't sleep."

"Sleep," Jack says again and the end of the word is lost in a breath and seconds later Ianto realises he's gone and he lays there with his head against Jack and listens to him breathe.

He doesn't realise he's fallen asleep himself until he's being woken up, a soft damp pressure under his ear. There's light behind his eyelids now and he opens them, squinting into the grey light of a new day. There is a nose pressed into the side of his face, a pair of lips on his skin.

"Jack."

"Shh," Jack says and kisses him again, the smallest touch under his ear and Ianto sighs, closes his eyes again. "You're beautiful when you sleep," Jack murmurs into his ear.

Ianto doesn't respond. Doesn't know what he can say to that. But he replies to the pressure of hands and lips, feeling them touch him with his eyes closed, the ghosting of finger tips against his skin, lips working their way up his jaw. When they find his mouth he kisses back, slow and languorous and they both taste like morning but Ianto doesn't care. He feels the bristle of an unshaven jaw against his and Jack's the first man he's ever wanted to kiss like this and he puts that fact away in the back of his mind for later contemplation. It doesn't bother him. He's seen aliens and worlds ending and nightmares come to life. And this is Jack. It's just Jack. It's never occurred to him that of all the horrors in the world that this should be one of them, and of all the things to be afraid of that his own self should be among them.

So he kisses Jack, pulls his tongue into his mouth. He tastes it with his own and when Jack sighs he can feel it inside of him, like a gift passed between them, and he returns it with one of his own.

"Ianto," Jack says, his eyes half closed. "Tell me to stop." He's halfway on top of Ianto, leaning over him, and Ianto can feel every exhalation pressed into his own chest.

"Fuck you," Ianto says and pulls him back down and Jack moans, a sound that Ianto can feel rising from his belly, tight against his own.

He doesn't know who starts it, which one of them reaches for the other first. He thinks it might have been him, his hands running down Jack's back, lower and lower until his fingers find the edge of his waist band, until they are dipping beneath, finding the rise of muscle and Jack groans as Ianto grasps that discovered flesh and pulls him further in. He thrusts his hips up, trying to meet that pressure, and the hard length of their erections slide together through two layers of material and this time the noise comes from Ianto, low and guttural and wanting and he can feel it tearing up from somewhere hidden.

"Jack," he gasps. "Clothes," and Jack hums against his lips before pulling away, sliding down Ianto's body and with eager hands pulls at his trousers and Ianto lifts his hips and lets them be taken away as he struggles to drag off his shirt.

"God, you're beautiful," Jack breathes and Ianto feels the words against his hip where Jack's lips are kissing him, his tongue dipping out to taste him.

"Jack, _please,"_ and he doesn't know exactly what he's asking for but those lips move inwards and Ianto can feel them, can feel the tug of the coarse hair of his groin as Jack nuzzles against it. And then there is Jack's tongue, wet and warm and tentative against the hard length of Ianto's penis and he cries out, arching up into that touch, wanting more.

"Beautiful," Jack murmurs and Ianto _feels_ it, feels the word branded onto him before the meaning is lost and Jack's mouth surrounds him, lips clasping over his length and sliding down until Ianto is engulfed, his entire world narrowed down to that hot tight breathless space between two lips. He isn't going to last. Can already feel himself building up towards it and part of him wants to stop, to slow this down but the language to make it happen isn't there and all he can do is thrust upwards and beg for more and it doesn't take long at all before he is sobbing Jack's name into the heavy air and coming and Jack's hands, Jack's mouth is gentling him, catching him in their warmth as he falls back down to earth.

He lays there, gasping and trying to reclaim something of himself as Jack slowly lets him go, crawls back up to him and surrounds him again, this time with arms and legs and Ianto lets him, closes his eyes and lets himself be encompassed.

"Sorry," he says when he can speak again and he feels the pressure of Jack's lips against his temple.

"What for?"

"I wanted it to last."

Jack's arms tighten around him. "Next time."

"You didn't even..." and he trails off because Jack kisses him again, sliding their fingers together and guides Ianto's down between his legs where Jack's penis is soft and sticky against his palm. Ianto can't help it. He puts his hand around it and holds it, marvelling at the fact that he is doing this, and Jack gives a gasp and chuckles.

"Before you did even," he says with a wry grin. "I suspect the staff are going to get tired of changing the sheets soon."

"I should get a flat. Change my own sheets."

Jack kisses him again. "You should."

"Thank you, Jack."

And this time when Jack kisses him it's slow and long and Ianto closes his eyes and lets himself fall.


	41. Monday Morning - Ianto

It's not a dream. It takes a shower and a hurried breakfast and Jack kissing him goodbye, slow and aching and promising in the doorway of the hotel room for Ianto to be entirely convinced of it, however. It feels surreal. And after closing the door behind him he goes back into the bedroom and stares at the rumpled sheets and isn't entirely sure what to think.

Something is tight with joy inside him, however, and he feels an irrational impulse to leave the bed as it is. Nonsensical, of course. He frowns and goes to make it properly, but afterwards, idling at the laptop, he gets up and hangs the Do Not Disturb sign on the door handle before tucking the laptop under his arm and leaving the room.

He goes to the electronics store first and buys himself a laptop bag because he's getting tired of carrying the bloody thing around under his arm. He then goes to the coffee shop he'd found last week, logs into his banking site, and transfers £10,201.14 to Jack's personal account, then another £500 to Torchwood. It occurs to him that he doesn't know how much the hotel room has cost and he makes a mental note to check at the desk when he gets back.

He orders another coffee and is about to start flat hunting when his phone rings. He doesn't even need to look at the display to know who it is.

"Hello, Jack."

_"Ianto. I've suddenly found myself richer by ten thousand seven hundred and one pounds and fourteen pence."_

"Technically, sir, the repayment of a debt doesn't actually make one richer. If anything you'll find you're poorer from having increased my wage so substantially."

_ "Wage increases make you incredibly cheeky. I'll have to remember that." _

"I'm flat hunting, I wanted to know how much rent I'll be able to afford."

"Why not buy?"

Ianto raises his eyebrows.

_ "You're rolling your eyes, aren't you?"  _ Jack says over the phone. He sounds amused.

"Close."

_ "Why is it such a terrible idea?" _

"I'm Torchwood, sir."

_ "And?" _

"Average life expectancy of a Torchwood agent—"

_ "Torchwood field agent, Ianto." _

"Yes. Well. All things considered, sir, I don't much see the point in taking the chance."

There's a pause on the line. _"Do you want to do field work?"_

"No."

_ "You can be trained—" _

"No."

Silence. Then, _"Alright. If you change your mind—"_

"I won't."

_ "Right. So. What kind of flat are you looking for?" _

"Two bedroom. Low rise. Preferably a house."

_ "But I love a nice roof." _

"I'll try to find something with a front porch."

_ "Spoil sport. You know there are some nice high rises along the bay." _

"Nope. How's the Rift today?"

_ "Quiet so far. We're all trying to catch up on our paperwork. Though I think Owen's fallen asleep on the autopsy table. Do you want me to archive things as they come in or will you just sit there worrying about me messing up your system if I do." _

"Leave them on the desk down there, I'll deal with it when I get back."

_ "You know...I know I said a month, but if you think you're ready..." _

"Do you think I'm ready?"

_ "I don't know. Do you?" _

"I don't know."

_"Do you even want to come back?"_  


"What do you think?"

_ "I think you'd go mad with boredom anywhere else." _

"There you are then."

_ "Its not what I think that's important, Ianto." _

"Isn't it?"

_ "Stop being so damn enigmatical." _

"I don't think that's a word."

_ "I'm emailing you the link to the dictionary entry right now." _

"We still need to talk, Jack."  


_ "Oh. I thought this morning..." _

"That we could have sex and all need for verbal communication would be over?"  


_ "That's not what I meant and you know it." _

"Not that I'm complaining, but why were you there anyway?"  


_ "I was in the area." _

"In the area."  


_ "Yes. Problem?" _

"Not at all. Just...sceptical."  


_ "Mr Jones, it does sound as if you're...dare I say it? Fishing." _

"I don't need to fish, as you call it. Simple curiosity."  


_ "You know what they say about curiosity." _

"And you know what they say about satisfaction."  


_ "My cot was broken." _

"I have a spare mattress in the Hub."  


_ "I found a spare mattress, thanks." _

"It's not spare if someone else is already on it."  


_ "You looked so lost on that enormous thing. How could I not save you? Anyway, the sofa in your room is the most uncomfortable piece of furniture I've ever encountered. I'm thinking of buying the hotel just so I can have it burnt." _

"You would probably only need to buy the sofa."  


_ "What? And miss a chance to flaunt my wealth in front of my sexy new lover?" _

"Bloody hell, is that what I am?"  


_ "What's wrong with being lovers?" _

"I feel like I'm in a badly written romance novel."

_ "Read many of those, have you?" _

"Only the ones I found in your office."  


_ "Touche." _

"Anyway. That—last night—whatever—is not what I wanted to talk about."  


_ "Oh?" _

"We need to go to London. Or maybe I need to go to London. But it would be—if you wanted—it might best if you came, too."

_ "This is about Canary Wharf." _

"Yes, sir."  


_ "Stop calling me sir." _

"Most of the survivors are based there. The few who've left the area are the ones who are mostly stable anyway."  


_ "Like you." _

"Am I stable?"

_ "Aren't you?" _

"I haven't decided yet."

_ "Do let me know when you have, won't you?" _

"Sarcasm isn't attractive, sir."  


_ "I don't know about that. I'm finding it incredibly attractive lately." _

"I'm going to book a train ticket for mid-week. Am I booking one or two seats?"

_ "Are you sure that's a good idea? I agree that I need to go to London but you don't need to come." _

"You wanted my help."  


_ "You can help from here." _

"It makes more sense for me to go there."  


_ "Ianto—" _

"This is a courtesy call, Jack. You don't need to come."

_ "Yes I do. Book me a ticket. First class, mind you. I plan on making Queen and Country pay out of the nose for this trip. Make sure the hotel is something stupidly expensive. The Goring. Or the Ampersand. Something hideously overpriced." _

"Is Torchwood paying then, sir?"  


_"What do you mean?"  
_

"Can we skip the bit where we pretend I'm an idiot? Not that I don't appreciate the need but it does save time if we just assume we've already done it."  


_ "Cheeky." _

"Yes, sir."  


_ "Torchwood is paying for this one if I have to hold a gun to their heads to do it."  
_

"I can't tell if that's Queen and Country or Trigger Happy American talking."  


_ "Maybe a bit of both. Listen, are you sure you want to go to London? I  _ am _ capable of doing things on my own, you know." _

"I would require evidence of that first, sir. And are _you_ sure? You're already short-handed at the Hub."  


_ "Tosh is predicting a quiet rest of the week. But I'll put in a call to UNIT, make sure they're standing by should things get out of hand." _

"Right. Well I've got tickets to book and coffee to drink. See you later?"  


_ "Definitely. Hey, wait! Coffee? Are you at that place you mentioned—" _

"Goodbye, sir."  


_ "Ianto!" _

"Yes, sir?"  


_ "I lied. My cot isn't broken." _

"I lied, too. I was definitely fishing."  


_ "You're gorgeous. Best sex I've ever had." _

"Liar."

_ "Never." _

Ianto hangs up, grinning, and books first class.  



	42. Thursday Afternoon - Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> clumsy transition chapters ahoy! (aka the writer is in too deep and doesn't know how to get back again)

Jack hadn't meant for it to happen.

At four o'clock in the morning after dropping Gwen and Tosh off home, he'd found himself reaching the Hub again and staring down at the narrow cot at the bottom of the hole in his office and had turned immediately back around. He'd gone to the hotel, slipping into Ianto's room and going to the sofa. He'd stretched out on it only to discover that whatever sadist had created this monstrosity could probably stand to learn something from the person who had built his cot forty years ago and after several minutes of considering buying the hotel if only so he could have all the sofas in it burnt, he'd gotten back up and gone into the bedroom.

He'd stared down at the large bed, at Ianto curled up on one edge of it. He'd hoped, standing there, that Ianto would wake up. Would turn over and reach for him, tug him under the blankets and tell him it was okay. But Ianto hadn't woken, so Jack had pulled off his soiled and wrinkled clothes and gotten in anyway. And he'd slept. Jack had _slept._

Until five thirty, still dark, Ianto had turned around in bed and Jack, half-conscious, had wrapped an arm around him and pulled him in.

He hadn't meant for it to happen.

But it had.

First Class by train wasn't the adventure Jack thought it would be. It's rather disappointingly similar to the normal fare except that the seats are bigger. He was expecting beds. He was expecting private compartments. He was expecting to be able to slowly strip Ianto and teach him how to stay quiet. Or at the very least be able to _touch_ him. It's intoxicating, being allowed to do this again. Being given the right. He knows this is dangerous territory, that these things don't mean the same to him as they do to the people of this century, but for the first time in years he doesn't much care. It is a relief, _such_ a relief, to be able to touch again, to be touched, a thousand words conveyed in a single brush of a finger over the side of a face. It's so easy to get lost in this, so easy to forget what a terrible idea it always ends up being. He sits watching Ianto across from him, separated by a space that he could so easily cross if Ianto was only looking at him, making some sort of contact. But he's not. He's staring out the window, a tense look on his face, as if waiting for something to appear, or dreading it.

"Coffee?" Jack asks simply for something to say, and as expected Ianto pulls his attention from the window long enough to give him a dirty look.

"If you think I'm drinking train coffee—" he breaks off when he sees Jack's grin and snorts, rolls his eyes. "Wanker."

"Not usually, no. That's what I have you for."

"Hilarious," Ianto says, incredibly unamused, and Jack's grin widens.

"How long till Paddington?"

Ianto shrugs. "Forty minutes or so."

"Or so? You mean you don't know exactly?"

"I don't know," Ianto snaps quietly. "Check the bloody time yourself if you want to know so badly."

Jack stares at him, taken aback, and the realisation that he's doing this wrong comes to him. "Hey."

Ianto doesn't look at him. He's staring out the window again but his posture is tense and his jaw is shifting back and forth as he grinds his teeth together. The colour is high on his cheeks, embarrassment and anger.

"Ianto."

"What."

"Look at me?"

There is a minute when Jack isn't sure that he'll listen. He glowers at the pane of glass with sightless eyes and it's only when Jack leans forward, reaches out and grasps his hand, that Ianto looks away. Glances down at their interlocked hands before finally looking up.

"Sorry," Ianto says.

"It's okay. Everything is okay now, you know that right?"

And Ianto stares at him, for a second something broken and close to crying on his face. And then it's gone. He squeezes his eyes shut, nods. "I know," he says, and turns back to the window.

 

* * * * *

 

London is loud and crowded and endlessly present. It pushes itself into your awareness like a presence, overwhelming and noisy, but there is something soothing about it, too. Like Yvonne, like Jack himself, it pulls all the attention towards itself, and getting off the train at Paddington Jack can see Ianto coming back together, all the loose edges of panic folding away as he melts into the anonymity of the city around him, once again the least of the available options, comfortably invisible among the obvious thousands.

"Where to first?" Jack asks as they stand outside the station, bags in tow, waiting in the cab rank for their turn to come up.

"Hotel. We're meeting with the committee delegate at seven."

"Hotel, huh?" Jack says and waggles his eyebrows. Ianto rolls his eyes.

The cab ride takes an unbelievably long time. They inch along the river with the rest of the population, attempting to snake their way through the city by way of traffic lights and construction zones. When they finally make it, emerging into Minories, they climb out of the car and Jack looks up at the stunted building they've stopped in front of and snorts a laugh.

"Short and cheap, Ianto?"

"Short, maybe. Cheap, no."

"I can think of a dozen hotels off the top of my head that cost more than the Chamberlain. Give me ten minutes with a phonebook and I'll find a dozen more. I thought my instructions were 'find the most expensive room you can and book it.'"

"If you want to stay somewhere else you're welcome to. I'll be staying here with their roof top terrace and twenty-four hour room service."

"Roof top? It's only four floors up!"

"Yes. Coming?"

Jack struggles for a moment between his annoyance and the overwhelming desire to make a sexual pun. By the time he decides Ianto's already inside and Jack gives a huff and hands over the exorbitant fare over to the waiting driver. He adds an overly generous tip and makes sure to note it down for the expenses.

It is a nice room, he has to admit, and while the terrace is small it offers enough space for breakfast and brooding and, to his delight, a view of the top of the most phallic building in the city peeking over the roofs like a surprise.

"Okay, fine," he says.

Behind him, sitting at the desk with his laptop out and open, Ianto just snorts. Jack grins and goes to him, watching his fingers flickering over the keyboard, going over budget projections and support arguments in spite of the fact that Jack has told him several times that they won't be necessary.

"So," Jack says, sliding his hands along those stiff shoulders. Ianto doesn't react, focusing on the computer, and Jack leans over, presses a kiss against his jaw. "I can think of something more interesting to do with those fingers."

"Busy, Jack," Ianto says, but he turns his head and kisses Jack and Jack feels the tip of a tongue dipping into his mouth and it feels...forced. He pulls back, looks at Ianto, but Ianto's already turning away again, back to his numbers, to his facts and logic lined up in incontrovertible text.

"Ianto?"

"Later, okay?"

Jack looks at him, at that profile giving nothing away. "Okay," he says, and leans over, presses one last kiss against that freshly shaven jaw. "I'm holding you to that, Mr Jones." And he's almost fooled by the leer that Ianto gives him. Almost.


	43. Thursday Evening - Ianto

He doesn't know what's wrong with him. What this feeling is like his skin is moving, crawling on tiny insect legs over his bones. It's worse when Jack touches him, as if all the prickling little things converge upon the spot where fingers linger, where lips touch. Ianto doesn't know why. Hates that it's happening. Doesn't know how to stop it

He looks back over three days of touching and kissing and sex, exploratory and precious, something to lose himself in, something in which the world had no place. And it had worked. It had been so easy. Waking up to find Jack in his bed he hadn't even questioned it, questioned the rightness of it, had simply let it happen and it had been wonderful. Three days of it and Ianto had felt the spin of the world slowing and becoming manageable. Had not forgotten the things that had happened but felt, suddenly, as if they didn't matter. As if nothing mattered but this.

He shouldn't be surprised that it didn't last. He hadn't thought about London seriously, hadn't really _thought_ about it until he'd been sitting on the train heading towards it and realised, with breathtaking suddenness, that it was too late to turn back now. That his passage there was as inevitable as it was inexorable and he had no one to blame for it but himself. Two hours in which he'd sat staring out the window and counting each place he could have jumped. On various bridges, passing over rivers, rushing past the channel. Over open farmland with grass scrub and cows in the distance, rolling to a stop on the cold ground, the train roaring on its way behind him. Or in these trees, jumping and clambering for a branch hanging over the tracks. And perhaps here, heading into a tunnel, standing on the roof and grabbing the stone arch and just holding on.

All of them impossible, none of them survivable. He imagines them all nonetheless, gaze fixated as he watches his phantom body rolling to a broken stop on some moor outside the window. Watching it vanish in the distance as the train rushes onwards without him. He forgets that Jack is there at all until he speaks to him and then it's like swimming up from some unfathomable depth, trying to get back to this world where there is Jack and there is him and Jack's hand on his is something to be expected and entirely natural.

He should have foreseen this. But he hadn't.

And now it's a quarter to seven and he's sitting in the lobby of the Chamberlain Hotel and Jack is pacing nearby. He's anxious. Ianto can feel it rolling off of him but he doesn't understand why and it occurs to him to wonder if it's because of him. Guilt immediately follows. He reaches up, grasps at Jack's hand as he paces restlessly past and immediately Jack stops, turns to him with a look of such blatant concern that Ianto knows he was right. Jack isn't afraid of the Committee. He isn't afraid of Torchwood. He isn't afraid of not getting what he wants. He's afraid of Ianto.

"Stop," Ianto says. "Calm down."

Jack immediately sits down beside him, half turned towards Ianto as if waiting further instruction. It's endearing and also worrying.

"We'll get through this," Ianto says, not entirely sure what he's talking about. The meeting with the delegate? Their goals for the survivors? London? His suspension? His return?

Jack doesn't say anything but his face goes soft, his expression unbearably tender. He leans forward to press a kiss to Ianto's lips and instinctively Ianto flinches back, his eyes immediately going to the crowded lobby around them. He pulls his hand out of Jack's and feels his face turn hot and red. Beside him, Jack has stilled.

"Shit," Ianto says. "Sorry. I didn't mean—"

"It's fine," Jack says, but his voice is strained and when Ianto makes himself look at him there is something hard and cynical in his face.

"It's not. Please, just...later. Please, Jack."

For another few seconds the cynicism stays. Jack's jaw is tight with anger and hurt, his expression one that Ianto knows, has seen so many times he has no trouble decoding it anymore. _Typical,_ it says. _I knew he wasn't good enough. I knew he'd disappoint me in the end._

And then Jack sighs and it's gone, melts away into something softer and his hand finds Ianto's again and Ianto makes himself stay still and accept the touch though the tiny legs beneath his skin are prickling against his nerves and making him shiver.

"Later," Jack agrees. "Don't fall apart on me yet, Ianto Jones."

"No, sir," Ianto says and he makes himself smile and he looks up to find the answering one on Jack's face except that it isn't there. He is looking past Ianto, to the entrance of the hotel, and Ianto turns his head to see a man, instantly recognisable as an official of some kind, walking briskly towards them.

Ianto is on his feet in an instant, welcome smile plastered smoothly on his face and holding out the hand that seconds before had been enclosed with Jack's.

"Sir," he says as the newcomer takes his hand, shakes it with distant if proper courtesy. "Thank you for meeting us."

Hard eyes flicker past Ianto and onto Jack. "I wasn't aware I had a choice," he says.

Ianto isn't sure what to say to that. Didn't ask and wasn't told why Jack has been so certain that all this would work out. He's regretting it now, but also isn't entirely sure that he wants to know, either.

"My name is Jones," he says instead.

The delegate grunts. "One of _them,_ I know. You put him up to this, I suppose."

Ianto stills, no idea what to say. "Sir?" he says, taking safety in ignorance, and the man lets out a snort of laughter.

"Very innocent, Mr Jones. I like you already. Shall we proceed to the bar? I suspect we'll all get along a great deal better with several drams of whiskey in us." And without waiting, he turns around and walks away, heading towards the pub without even a glance to see if they're following.

Ianto stares after him for several seconds before turning to find Jack, wanting to find some kind of explanation in his face. Except that Jack is gone too, already moving off, and Ianto realises that whatever control he thought he'd have here, whatever expectations he'd built up had been an illusion. He doesn't know what's going to happen, but he knows, without a doubt, that they will get what they're asking for in the end. He knows this with a certainty that has no basis in known fact. But suddenly this, of all the things, seems like the least important.


	44. Thursday Evening - Jack

Quintin Lowe has changed. He's _aged._ It startles Jack sometimes, how quickly that happens, often without him noticing. He takes such effort to avoid re-meeting people. And those he does see over a period of years is usually a constant exposure. Tosh. Owen. Suzie. He sees them constantly and he forgets that they're getting older until one day he sees a photo and he thinks "that wrinkle wasn't there before. That scar is new. Their hair hasn't been grey for all that long. Has it?" He forgets sometimes, forgets he's alone. And seeing Quintin Lowe, stooped and silver-haired, new wrinkles carved into the skin of his face, it reminds him. It's been years since he's seen this man. He could have happily left it for years more.

They sit at a booth, old wooden fixtures oddly reassuring and Jack has to wonder if this was part of the reason Ianto had chosen it. Not for Jack, but for himself. For this aged man they are meeting. There is something reassuring about age, about the visual evidence of passing time, the indisputable fact that one is still here to see it happen and that when one is gone it will continue to happen regardless. The world doesn't end and perhaps, just perhaps, neither do we.

Deluded, of course, but there's humans for you. Jack loves that things change. Loves that nothing lasts. It fills him with hope.

Quentin Lowe, official delegate for the Future Options Committee, orders a gin and tonic and then sits back in his seat and stares at Jack and Ianto seated across from him, with an expectant look on his face.

Beside Jack, Ianto is silent, and Jack wonders that he hasn't pulled out his laptop yet, hasn't started reciting numbers and lines of well-rehearsed arguments, pulling up information, facts, presenting reason and logic to this man who represents a group of people who's idea of reason and logic had nearly destroyed the world.

"Well?" Quintin Lowe says. _"You_ called _us_ here, Captain Harkness. We were quite happy to never have to hear from you again."

Jack snorts. "I'll bet you were. How's the Committee, Quintin? Everyone doing well?"

"As you know, we all lost people—"

"Bullshit."

Quintin's face is hard. "Indeed. You are the sole proprietor of loss, aren't you?"

Jack says nothing, glaring at the man across from him. He wonders that the simple presence of these people can rile him up so quickly, so completely. He tries to remember why he's here and under the table he presses his leg sideways, searching for Ianto's solidity at his side, but he's too far away and Jack sits back on the bench, forcing himself to stay calm.

"You know I still have the information. Every reading I took. Every piece of evidence and believe me there is a lot of it. All of it is backed up and meticulously saved. All of it, copied in several places. Every word you lot ever wrote to me, every phone call recorded. If anything happens to me they go straight to Her Majesty. Worse than that, they go to every major newspaper in the country. They go to UNIT. They go to America, Germany, China, Iraq. _Everywhere._ How long do you think you and your Committee will last?"

Quintin Lowe sighs, genuine boredom in his face. "Indeed. How fascinating."

"Don't patronise me, Quintin. You won't like the result."

"Don't threaten me, Captain. As far as we can see, nothing has changed. For either of us."

"I've reconsidered the terms."

And now Quintin does look interested. He leans forward, a single silver eyebrow arching over a sharp eye. "That is news. Can I ask what brought this on?"

"My conscience."

Quintin Lowe narrows his eyes. They slide over to Ianto, silent on the bench beside Jack.

"Ianto Jones," he says. "Survivor. And how are you enjoying your employment at Torchwood Three, Mr Jones?"

Beside Jack, Ianto is stiff and still. His face is blank, giving nothing away. "I find my work satisfactory, sir."

"Excellent. That's excellent. You must be quite exemplary to have caught the Captain's eye. Though, he and Ms Hartman always did have rather more in common than either of them cared to admit."

"Sir?"

"Such a young, good-looking thing, aren't you?"

"That's enough," Jack snaps, and Quintin Lowe's eyes flicker back to him, a considering look on his shrewd face.

"Important, is he?"

"You know, this is why I hate talking to you people. Never a straight answer. Always these fucking games with you. You think you can threaten your way out of this? It's too late. I fucked up once, I'm not doing it again. I'd say do your goddamn worse but you won't, will you? 'Cuz you're all a bunch of fucking cowards in the end."

"Strong words for someone with so much to lose, Captain Harkness."

"Not nearly as much as you seem to think. And not even _close_ to how much you have to lose. Because this isn't just your career, your name, your bank account I'm talking about here. It's your families. Your friends. Everything. Every _one."_

Quintin Lowe barks a laugh, hoarse and overloud. Several people in the pub turn to look at them at the sound. "You're bluffing, Captain Harkness."

And this time it's Jack's turn to laugh, low and dangerous. He leans over the table until he is inches away from Quintin's face, staring into those hardened eyes and he isn't even a little bit afraid. This man has had a single lifetime to learn how to be a bastard. Jack's had three.

And really, it doesn't take very much after all. "I have a secret for you, Mr Lowe," he says, and whatever iron resides in the heart and soul of this incredibly mortal man across from him, it's nothing to the black hole that resides in Jack. _"Everything you've ever heard about me is true."_

For the very first time, something like uncertainty manages to cross its way over Quintin Lowe's face. Something a little bit like fear and even if Jack hadn't seen it on him he can _smell_ it, rank and putrid, and he inhales, tasting it before he lets himself lean back again, staring at the man across from him who is suddenly just that: a man. An old man. And he's not nearly as old as Jack.

"We are going to speak to the Committee tomorrow, Quintin," Jack says and it's not an argument.

For a second it looks like Quintin is going to argue anyway, but at that moment the server appears, three glasses on a tray. The tension is broken, just like that, and as the three glasses make their way in front of their owners Jack risks a side glance at Ianto. But he is shuttered and still at his side. There is nothing in his face, there is nothing that gives him away.

"I concede," Quintin says as soon as the server is gone. He doesn't touch his gin and tonic. Rises to his feet, his own mask back in place, no trace of the fear left in him. "Tomorrow you may speak your demands before the Committee. No doubt they will be granted. We have offices in Whitehall. We will call you with the details in the morning."

"Whitehall, huh? I thought you were above the government, Quintin."

"Needs must, Captain Harkness. Needs must."

And with those words he's gone, a last nod to Ianto before vanishing out the door and Jack is left with a ringing in his head as he tries to get his head around what he's just done. It was a bluff, of course. Any action he takes against the Committee will fall hardest on Torchwood itself and by default, Torchwood Three. The Committee, as it is now, is little more than a group of overpaid conspiracy theorists. They're powerless, figureheads only. 93% of the weapons tech in One had been lost during the attack, the rest of it had been dug out and divvied up between Two and Three. Some of it Jack and Archie had themselves deliberately destroyed. There was only a shell left of what Torchwood had been, what it had meant. Anything Jack did to attack it would in effect be an attack on himself, the last standing guard, little more than an artefact himself.

He looks over at Ianto, staring intently at the glass of lager in his hand, and he wonders what it is that separates them. He thinks of what he's done. He thinks of what Ianto's done. And he wonders if he'll ever get up the courage to tell him.

Probably not.

"So," Jack says. "Back to the hotel or fancy a night out?"

Ianto looks up at him. Blinks. He smiles slightly but it's entirely false and Jack feels a glimmer of genuine alarm.

"Ianto?"

"I think I'll turn in," he says. "Long day."

It wasn't, though. Not really. But it's clear Ianto wants to be left alone and Jack nods, giving this to him. He owes Ianto an explanation but Jack doesn't know if he can give it.

"Right. I think I'll wander around a bit."

"Find a roof?" Ianto says and it's obvious he's trying for lightness and even if he's failed, the fact that he tried makes Jack breathe a little easier.

"Something like that," he says, and he reaches over and squeezes Ianto's hand. After a few seconds, Ianto squeezes back.


	45. Thursday Night - Ianto

It's barely eight when Ianto turns off the lights and crawls into the suddenly too small double bed. The insects are crawling all over him, tiny stinging jaws beginning to eat into him now, digging past flesh and piercing red hot into twitching muscle. He listens to the sound of London, muffled through the glass, and stares at the glittering outline of the Gherkin visible above the roof tops.

He's in London. The sound of it, the sight of it, the _smell_ of it, washing through him and making him twitch. He shouldn't have come here. Hadn't even considered what it would mean until he'd gotten on the train. In that moment, lying in the dark, he wants to lay down bombs and watch the whole city explode. Decimate it into the ground. Turn it to rubble and dust, its people to ash. He hates it. He listens to it living and he resents it. Resents the stillness of the shadow he lies in while everything else seems to vibrate with life, with a continued existence it doesn't deserve while he's stuck here, will always be stuck here in this place.

He thinks of the woman, Melissa, circling constantly between pain and death with nothing in between and he feels a kinship with her. He thinks of Flat Holm and his improvements there and he wonders if subconsciously he's fitting it up for himself, getting it ready for his own internment. He wonders if that's Jack's intentions or his own.

He wants to go home. He wants to be back in Cardiff, in the silence of his hotel room, the world muffled by Jack entwined around him. Only last night he'd laughed, spent with joy in his lover's arms. Only last night he'd thought it could actually be as easy as that. Kissing Jack. Making love to Jack. Silence and laughter and joy. It had been so easy. Too easy. He really should have known. He really shouldn't have come here.

London.

He hates this place. He wants to light the river on fire, watch the city burn from the inside out.

He looks at the clock. 9:53. He sits up. Sleep isn't coming. It won't come while he's here. He wonders how soon they can leave tomorrow. He wonders if he should leave, if he's meant to be anywhere but here, the centre of the universe, of the truth he has become. This place is where he belongs, where all his sins had been born. How can he leave knowing that it's still here? He begins to dress, ignoring the feast the insects are making of his flesh. He's just putting on his jacket when the door opens and Jack walks in.

"Ianto?"

He pauses in the doorway, eyes adjusting to the dimness, to Ianto dressed to go out, and Ianto finds that he doesn't want to be here with him.

"Just going to go for a walk," he says.

Jack closes the door behind him. "Stay," he says.

"I'll be back in a bit."

"Please?"

Ianto takes a breath, lets it out slowly. "I can't sleep."

"I know. Come on, we'll stay awake together. Room service on your terrace. How about Champagne?"

Ianto chokes on a laugh. "Champagne? What are we celebrating?"

Jack shrugs. "Surviving? I just like the way it tastes."

Ianto giggles and it comes out sounding hysterical. He clamps his teeth shut and wills himself silent. Breathes deeply and forces himself to calm down and doesn't notice that Jack's come to him until he's being touched and the insects rush to the contact and burn.

He flinches away. "Stop," he begs.

Jack freezes. "Ianto?"

"I can't do this."

"Do what? Sex?"

"This place."

"Told you. One of those five-star places in Kensington—"

"Jack."

"Hey. I'm sorry." A pause. Jack's eyes are seeking him in the dark. "You going to be okay till tomorrow? We'll get out of here as soon as the meeting's over."

Ianto is silent. He doesn't know if he'll be okay till then. Doesn't know if he's okay now.

"Hey." Jack comes a step closer, not touching but offering to touch and Ianto closes his eyes, feels the heat coming off of him, inhales the sea-scent of his pheromones. "Stay?" Jack says again, and this time Ianto nods.

They undress themselves separately, Ianto careful to leave his bottom layers on. He hadn't brought sleep clothes with him. Hadn't been wearing any since Monday and it hadn't occurred to him at the time of packing that four nights in a hotel would lead to anything different. But now he's wishing for them as he huddles under the blankets, pressed as far to the edge of the mattress as he can get. He should have booked a different room, a king bed, but again, it hadn't occurred to him that it would be necessary. He lays still, facing the window and the city outside as the mattress dips behind him and Jack settles in, careful not to touch.

The city is noisy, even here, four floors up. He misses Cardiff. He misses the hum of the Hub. The silence of his hotel room. He breathes in the reek of the Thames, of the car exhaust, of thousands of people pressed into too small a space. He breathes in smoke and steel and concrete, the heat of machinery and progress, warming the stones long after the sun's gone down, an entire population working to build a precarious future, whatever that might mean. He breathes it in and tries to keep it from choking him.

"Ianto?"

He's breathing too fast, too much oxygen being pulled into his lungs.

_"Ianto."_

He's hyperventilating and can't remember how to stop. _Breathe,_ he tells himself. _One, two, three, four, five, six..._

And then something heavy and hot drops over him, a body collapsed and he smells it, Axel's aftershave, choking him and getting into his lungs, overriding even the smell of charred flesh and overheated metal. He makes a noise and presses into it, praying that it will shield him but knowing that it won't, that he's lost, that he has moments left before something finds him and he will die. _Please make it fast. Please make it fast. Don't let it hurt too much._

_I've got you, you're safe._

_Don't let it hurt. Please don't let it hurt.  
_

_You're safe. Ianto. Ianto Jones. Listen to me. It's over. I've got you. You're safe._

_Please._

_You're safe._

_Help._

_I've got you._

_Lisa._

_Breathe._

_Lisa._

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five._

_Jack._

_Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten._

_Jack._

_Breathe, Ianto. Come on, Ianto Jones. Breathe for me._

"Jack."

"Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen—"

"Jack."

"Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen—"

He breathes. The body on top of him is Jack's, an arm slung over him, keeping him still. They're on the floor and he has not idea how they got there. The blankets are in a twisted heap around them, tangling in his legs and anchoring him. He kicks against them, needing to be free.

"I've got you," Jack's voice tells him, soft in his ear, and the arm leaves him in order to pull the blankets from around his legs, push them aside, and as soon as they gone he's back again, a hand on Ianto's shoulder, not restraining him but telling him he's there. "You're safe."

"Fuck," Ianto swears and hears the break in his own voice, feels the sob clawing at his throat and trying to get out.

"Go on," Jack says. "Call it a down payment. When it's my turn you can hold me." And Ianto laughs, a sudden breaking sound, and with it comes the tears, comes the sobs. Again. Again. Will this never be over, he thinks, and when Jack pulls him in, holds him tight against him on the floor, his breath a living thing against his ear, his voice something firmly real, Ianto lets himself go and doesn't realise until later, when the quiet comes back, when they are drifting on the edge of sleep on the floor, that the insects have gone away. Jack is touching him. London burns down in his dreams.


	46. Friday Morning - Ianto

When it comes, the morning is bright and loud and unseasonably warm. Ianto blinks sticky eyelids open, shifts against the ache of sore muscles, feels the pressure of new bruises, of Jack warm and flush against his back. He makes a noise, just to hear himself.

"Morning," Jack says in his ear.

"What time is it?"

"Still early. You okay?"

Ianto grunts, pulling himself up, wincing against a body aching from a night spent on the floor, from bruises he doesn't remember getting. "I'm getting too old for this," he says and behind him Jack chuckles.

He checks his phone first thing but there's nothing but an email from Helen, telling him that the plumbers have finally finished and that the workers for the garden wall called to delay. He writes back a quick message, all the while aware of Jack moving around him, making the bed, calling room service for breakfast, checking his phone. He watches from the corner of his eye as he types in a quick message and then disappears into the bathroom where he hears the water turn on and begin to fill the tub.

"Breakfast in bath," Jack says when he emerges again, grinning.

"Do we have time?" Ianto asks in lieu of the more obvious question.

"Yep. Meeting's at one. It's only half eight so we've got a few hours to kill. Want to go see the Tower?"

Ianto raises an eyebrow and Jack laughs, going to him and pulling him into a kiss that Ianto returns, if not with his usual easy joy then with at least something close to it. He's still on edge, but it's better. He no longer feels as though he's being eaten alive.

"So," Jack says. "You get in the bath and when breakfast comes I'll bring it in."

"Aren't you coming in?" Ianto asks and Jack nips at his bottom lip, pulling it between his teeth before soothing it with a lap of his tongue.

"Do you want me to?"

"Do we fit?"

"Probably not. How about I wash your back instead?"

"Deal."

Breakfast when it comes is mostly coffee and toast. Ianto isn't hungry, but he sits waist deep in the hot water and lets Jack press two slices of thick bread onto him, slathered in butter and jam. He eats it in incremental bites, forcing it into the hollow place in his gut and gets through most of it before having to give up. Jack sits on the edge of the tub, sipping coffee, his feet in the water and his legs around Ianto who leans back into him. They're both naked, the hot water filling the bathroom with steam, and it feels far more intimate than sex. Jack's hand is strung around Ianto's neck like a collar and Ianto closes his eyes and pretends for a second that it is. Is weirdly reassured by it.

"What's the plan today?" he asks when the coffee is gone and the water has started to cool, Jack's skin against his the warmest point of his body.

"Show up. Tell them what we want. Go home."

"That easy."

"That easy."

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Hm?"

"Why it's that easy."

Jack stills. Though neither of them are moving Ianto can feel it, the way his muscles tense against him.

"Would you be angry if I said no?" Jack asks.

"No," Ianto says, but doesn't add that in that event he will find out himself even if he has to tear the entire Hub apart to do it.

"Then no," Jack says, and Ianto nods.

"Okay."

"Just like that?"

"Yep." He's already sorting through the likeliest files to find information. "How long do you think it'll take? I want to book the train tickets."

"Give it a couple of hours. It won't take that long but you never know. They're bureaucrats after all."

"Alright. Hey."

"What?"

"You promised me a clean back."

"So I did."

 

* * * * *

 

The conference room in the offices at Whitehall are old and draughty, its interior design a relic of the eighties as opposed to the rather more dignified centuries that came before. The panelling is scuffed, the heating broken, the windows painted shut. It doesn't say very much about the current influence of Torchwood, but the twelve people seated around the conference table don't seem to be aware of it. They are stiff-backed and cold-faced. Ianto sees not only a lack of warmth for his and Jack's arrival in their midst but an overt hostility.

There are half a dozen empty seats at the end of the table closest to the door. Jack sits down at the head of the table without waiting for any sign or invitation. Ianto takes the chair on his immediate left, feeling the burn of the stares of the Future Options Committee as he does so. Jack is in charge of this, he understands, but he is the specimen put on display. He is the survivor. He feels their eyes on him and has a sudden sympathy for the molecules trapped under the microscope lens.

"I assume we may dispense with the civilities," a woman says. She is opposite Jack, mid-fifties with stark white hair. Quintin Lowe is on her right, his eyebrows low over cold eyes.

"Hey there, Maggie," Jack says with a grin. "Long time no see."

The woman's nostrils faintly flare but it's the only sign she gives of anything other than tolerant amusement. "Not long enough, Jack."

"You wound me."

"I don't suppose we could skip over all this? I have a granddaughter I need to pick up from school. Though from what Quintin tells us you're already aware of all that. Really, Jack? _Our families? Our friends?_ Do you really expect me to believe you capable of something so blatant and crass?

Jack grins, levering his feet onto the conference table and putting his hands behind his head. "It's been a while since nineteen ninety-two, Mags. You can't imagine what I'm capable of."

"No one changes that much, Jack."

"You did."

The tolerant amusement flickers for a brief second. There is something savage in her face when she replies. "Your startling inability to see beyond the next good fuck is one of your more endearing qualities. Do you think it's just possible that you didn't actually know me all that well?"

Jack's grin is feral. "That stung, did it?"

"Why don't we ask your latest." Her gaze flickers sideways to Ianto. "The reason, I presume, we're all sitting here today?"

The grin is gone and Jack is straightening in his seat. Ianto wants to put a hand out, restraint or reassurance, he's not sure which, but he resists, keeping himself straight-backed and expressionless in his chair.

"There is only one thing I want from you all today and then I'll be gone," Jack says.

"Yes, your email said," Maggie says. "Compensation for the survivors. The point is fair. You cited conscience as a reason to Mr Lowe yesterday. I admit the only reason we called you here for the discussion is because we were curious. What possible reason could the heartless and conscienceless suddenly have to change his mind? If I recall correctly, when you were approached four months ago about taking some of the survivors in you refused outright. In the strongest terms. I believe I still have the email."

"That wasn't the same thing."

"Oh, no. I mean, even dear old Archie was willing to pull in a few of the stragglers. Most of the survivors didn't want anything to do with Torchwood after the fact, of course, but I know of at least three who asked for a transfer. Mr Jones here was not among them, oddly. However, I'm pleased you found some small surviving piece of decency inside you."

"I made a mistake."

"Indeed. Just think of all the other candidates you missed out on. Kieran MacAuley from Recovery is quite the good-looking young man if I recall correctly. He's with UNIT now, I believe."

Jack is silent. He is white-faced, his fingers tight against the edge of the table.

"I believe," Ianto says, rising to his feet, and as every eye swivels onto him he finds himself just as surprised as they are that he is speaking. "I believe that this is for my benefit?"

The woman regards him, dark eyes considering, and he adjusts his jacket and raises a cool eyebrow. He has his laptop and he considers taking it out but Jack was right. This meeting has nothing to do with budgets.

"This meeting," he says, "as far as I was aware, was meant to address the matter of compensation for the survivors and the families of the survivors of Torchwood One. While I'm sure your fascination with Captain Harkness's personal life is of interest to your psychiatrist, I personally fail to understand its pertinence to the proceedings. Would it be out of order to request we move on?"

For a moment Ianto thinks he's gone too far. No one moves. Jack is a frozen statue beside him and the woman, Maggie's, face is a piece of art, suspended somewhere between mortification and rage.

And then, miraculously, there is a sound. Someone is laughing and astonishingly it's not Jack.

It's a woman, small and brown and wrinkled as a nut.

"I thought I would like you," she rasps in a voice that speaks of two packs a day. "Request seconded. Sit down, Margaret. You too, Harkness."

There is the awkward shuffling of paper and the shifting of a group people suddenly uncomfortable in their seats, but both Jack and Margaret sit down and Ianto is left the only one standing, looking at this tiny woman seated on the end of one row of committee members and facing the door. She is watching Ianto, a smile carved into her dark face.

"So, Ianto Jones. Tell us what you want."

He blinks, glances down at Jack but Jack isn't looking at him, is watching the old woman with an inexplicable look on his face.

"I have the numbers laid out," Ianto says. "Several of the survivors have already committed suicide. A few others have died from their injuries. I believe all told there are only about seventeen of us left."

"And you want money from us, do you, young man?"

"Not myself personally, ma'am. I was thinking for those unable to continue to support themselves. Those with medical bills that aren't covered by the NHS. Those that need ongoing care due to injuries or trauma. Those families left in difficulties due to loss of a family member."

"Very noble."

He doesn't say anything. Stands there while she watches him, eyes narrowed and almost invisible among the creases in her face.

"You are very loyal to your Captain, are you not?" she says after a minute.

Ianto blinks. Keeps his face carefully neutral. "If you say so, ma'am."

"Not a bad thing. But I wonder how much you know about the man you follow so willingly."

"I think you misunderstand. My role at Torchwood Three is as archivist and researcher. Hardly requiring of the deepest trust."

"So you don't trust him?"

"Only compared to some, ma'am."

"Ha!" She gives a shout of laughter and slaps a bony hand down on the table. "You mean us, of course. Very sly. I like you, Mr Jones."

"How kind of you, ma'am."

She chuckles. "As you say, of course, the Captain's personal life is not our concern. But perhaps you will satisfy our curiosity as to why this proposal comes now. We are aware of the threats the Captain is capable of making. We are aware of which ones he's capable of going through with, as well. He is as ruthless and as selfish as the rest of us, of course. He's simply had longer to perfect it."

Ianto says nothing, but he sees Jack stiffening in his seat out of the corner of his eye.

"There is no real reason," he says. "I simply found myself in a position to inquire and the Captain has been kind enough to see my side."

"Your side. Indeed. That implies an opposite side, of course."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Of course you did. We're the enemy. Fair enough. It has occurred to us that we had not acted as we should. There was a great deal happening in a very small amount of time and the fate of twenty-seven when so many hundreds more needed to be accounted for, to our regret, fell to the wayside. We are grateful to you for bringing it to our attention and would like to extend to you a proposal as overseer of the Canary Wharf Survivor Fund."

"That's...that's very generous, ma'am."

"Is it? I'm glad you think so. I'm certain you have a great many details laid out on that computer of yours, however, seeing as how there are several points you may not have considered I ask that we put off serious discussion as to allocation of funds and aid until we are all able to put a more comprehensive plan forward. Would a week be sufficient for this, Mr Jones?"

"More than, ma'am. Thank you."

"Good. Now. Since your demands have been met, perhaps you will allow our curiosity some scope."

"I'm not sure that's appropriate, ma'am."

"It's not, of course, but I must insist. Tell me, Mr Jones, are you aware of how the incident at Canary Wharf came to pass?"

"Yes. I was there."

"Indeed. Latest protégé of Ms Hartman. She mentioned you as a person of interest in her last communication with us before she died. Junior Researcher with a penchant for finding things out. She was impressed by you. I gathered that most of her aides didn't last very long. Demanding, the word most often used to describe her. She was difficult to impress. And yet, you seemed to manage it."

"I was merely doing my job, ma'am."

"Oh hardly that. But I make allowances for your natural modesty. Tell me, Ianto Jones. In all your...research and extracurricular studies, did it never occur to you to wonder what was happening on the top floor?"

Ianto hesitates. Isn't sure what this wizened old woman is looking for, what the rest of the Committee is looking for, their eyes fixed on him like birds of prey seeing something small and helpless moving about below. He remembers conversations like this with Yvonne. Those times when she'd known the answer and had simply been looking to see what he'd say. He'd been willing to play then. Had been thrilled and stimulated and curious. But he's not willing to play anymore. Has learnt where games with people like Yvonne Hartman led. So instead he tells the truth.

"Yes, ma'am, I did wonder. I found out some of it, as well."

He can feel the surprise in the room in the full ten seconds of silence that follows.

"Ah," the woman croaks and there is uncertainty there. "So you understood..."

"Some of it, yes. I understood enough to realise that overall the project was extremely risky."

"And I suppose you talked to someone about this. Someone above Yvonne, who could try to put a stop to it."

"No, ma'am."

Another silence. Then, "No? And...dare I ask why not?"

"It never occurred to me to do so, ma'am. We weren't trained to question our orders and I liked my job. I didn't want to risk it by drawing attention to myself."

"So your job was more important to you than the safety of your co-workers. The safety of this world."

"I didn't think of it in those terms at the time. But yes, that is what it amounted it."

"And in what terms did you think of it, might I ask?"

"I believe the term is _laissez-faire._ "

Another silence and Ianto can almost hear the frantic pitch of their thoughts across the boardroom table. He doesn't fidget. Doesn't let himself do so.

"You are very forthcoming," she says finally.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Is there a reason for this rather startling openness? Are you not afraid that by confessing to these things you are laying yourself open to some degree of responsibility in what happened?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"So there is a reason?"

"No, ma'am. I meant yes, I am claiming some responsibility. I imagine we all must who sat by and watched it happen."

"Ah. By which you infer this Committee."

"As you say."

"You are a very polite young man."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"That wasn't necessarily a compliment."

"Thank you anyway, ma'am."

"You are also very cheeky."

"I've been told."

Her eyes flash briefly to Jack. "Yes, I imagine. You seem to have gathered quite a bit of influence with the Captain in such a short time. I won't make the same crude assumptions as my colleagues, but I will state that it's...well...rather impressive. I don't suppose your leader's openness has extended towards confessing his own reasons for his _laissez-faire_ position in the matter."

And again, Ianto sees the sudden stiffening of Jack beside him. He blinks furiously for a second, willing his mask to remain in place, but he can feel his muscles tensing.

_Don't push. Don't push. Don't ask. Do you really want to know this?_

_Yes._

"I'm afraid I don't understand, ma'am."

Beside him, Jack presses his face into his hands.

"Surely, Mr Jones, a man of such intelligence and common sense must have had opportunity to ask why the next most sophisticated branch in alien technologies didn't detect some of the activity occurring a mere two hundred miles away. The technologies you employ are compatible with what One's had been and as I understand it were designed to detect larger spatial and temporal anomalies occurring on a global scale. Surely the activities of Torchwood One would have registered on some of your instruments."

"I can't say. I wasn't there at the time, ma'am," Ianto says and there is no inflection in his voice but in his head his thoughts are beginning to stumble over themselves.

"No, you weren't. But you are there now and your technologies haven't changed that much in the four short months since you came to be there. I have no doubt the Captain has mentioned to you his own involvement in the affair. Or should I say, lack of involvement. Indeed, of everyone, it's arguable that he was the most equipped to put a stop to it. After all, a single word to...who was it you mentioned, Captain? Her Majesty? Every major newspaper in the country? UNIT? America, Germany, China, Iraq? Do I have that right? A single word and all the well-laid plans of Yvonne Hartman and Torchwood One would have been extinguished at a stroke. Strange, don't you think, that he didn't do so. What do you suppose stopped him?

"I shouldn't ask you that, of course. By the look on your face this is all news to you, but you might want to question what it was he decided was more important than the universe itself, more important than the lives of eight hundred and twenty-three of your co-workers. Your own life, in fact."

"Enough." Jack is on his feet, his eyes dangerously narrow, his expression too close to the one he wore the night Lisa had nearly destroyed the world, when he'd held a gun to Ianto's head and given him his orders to execute.

"Ah, the illustrious Captain chooses to speak," the woman says and she is crowing as she says it and Ianto hates her. Hates them all.

"I wouldn't strain myself," he snarls. "All you pack of jackals need to know is that I made a mistake then. I won't again, not like this. Don't think you know who I am because I'm not your tame dog. You've picked out pieces of my life that you think tells you something about what I am but for every single thing you think you know there are a hundred more you can't even fathom, and the second you stop being useful to me is the second you find out just how unimportant you really are."

"Strong words."

"Not nearly strong enough. The wrong people were killed at Canary Wharf. It would have saved me so much time if it had been you. You have one week to have your proposals for compensation on my desk."

"You'll have it, Captain. There's no need to get excited."

"I don't think you understand, Geeta. You have one week. Because after that I'm coming for you. Ianto, we're going," and without waiting for a response he's turned around and is heading for the door. Ianto, despite the sudden pounding in his head, gives a nod. Notices that of the assembled company only the wizened old woman and Quintin Lowe returns it. And then he goes, following Jack.


	47. Friday Afternoon - Jack

There is a boiling rage that he hasn't felt in a very long time. It's the anger of helplessness, of frustration, of the knowledge that he could kill and murder and die for this in spite of the fact that he knows it will do no good, that it won't change a thing. It's the anger he felt towards the Daleks on the Game Station, the very first time he knew he was going to die. The anger he felt towards Torchwood during those first days, tied to a chair and killed over and over again. The anger of knowing he didn't have a choice and knowing there was nothing he could change. The anger he'd felt towards Ianto that night and the anger that he felt towards Torchwood One. The anger he has always felt towards Torchwood One. He's familiar with it by now but he frightens himself when he's in this state because he has never acted rationally at these times. Has never learnt how to control this frustrated helplessness, this need to commit violence against someone, something.

So angry is he that it takes him several moments to realise that Ianto is no longer behind him and he whirls, the sharp words already on his tongue, when he catches sight of Ianto's face.

It is blank. Ianto is straight-backed and polite in the middle of the street, adjusting his jacket and looking inscrutable.

“Ianto?”

“I really should have thought of that on my own, shouldn't I have?” Ianto says and his voice is calm, betraying nothing but casual interest. He might be asking about the weather or Jack's dry cleaning.

 _Oh for fuck's sake, not here,_ Jack thinks and while some part of him is ashamed of the thought, the larger part is still caught up in his own rage and he doesn't have time for this, he doesn't want to do this. He doesn't owe this man anything, doesn't owe anyone anything. He's not even supposed to be here.

"You want to do this now?" he snaps. Several people passing turn to look at them. He ignores them, steps closer to Ianto. Close enough to kiss him, close enough to hit him. "This is what they wanted. This is why they did this, to screw with you. Why are you letting them win?"

Ianto doesn't lean back. Just raises a cool eyebrow and Jack wants to tear it off his face.

"They had a point, however."

"Don't you dare."

"Did you know what was happening?"

_"Don't you dare."_

_"Did you?"_

"For god's sake!" He scrubs at his face with his hands. "Does it _matter?"_ he demands, throwing his arms out, needing to move, needing to hit something. He wants to rage and storm and ruin. He isn't even supposed to be here. This isn't what he was supposed to be doing, fielding questions in this fucking backwater century, tiptoeing around these backwards unevolved humans trying to conform to their narrow ways. He doesn't belong here, doesn't want to be here, hates everything on this doomed and self-destructive planet, these doomed and self-destructive people. He could tear them apart starting with Ianto, stubborn and inscrutable, standing before him as if he mattered, as if any of this was actually important, as if he was important, as if he wasn't already a pile of long forgotten dust by the time Jack is supposed to be born light years from this god-forsaken place. "It's done! It's _over,_ Ianto!"

"If it doesn't matter then tell me. Did you know what was happening?"

"For god's sake."

"Talk to me. Jack. _Come on."_

"Yes! Yes of course I knew! How could I not know, a giant gaping fucking hole in the universe! Do you know who else knew? Torchwood One, all those hypocrites sitting at that table today. Everyone fucking knew, Ianto! Even goddamn junior researchers apparently knew so why the hell you think you're any better than me—"

"I don't."

 _"Then why are you asking?_ What the hell does it matter?"

"Because it does."

"Why does it? What does that even mean? Jesus, this fucking place, this _fucking_ century."

Ianto doesn't say anything, stands there and looks at him and Jack doesn't look back, refuses to acknowledge the hurt he knows he'll see on his face.

"I'm not supposed to be here," Jack says, forces himself to say calmly. Rationally. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"You're changing the subject."

"I'm not. It just _doesn't matter."_

"Can't you just tell me?"

"Tell you what? That it all gets better? That it could have made a difference? That somewhere Ianto Jones and Lisa Hallett are living happily ever after because some coward decided to do the right thing?"

He isn't looking at him, but Jack hears the catch in Ianto's breath, that wild breath of hope, and something that he didn't know he'd been nurturing falls to dust inside his chest.

"That's what you want to hear, isn't it?" he says and he feels like all the air's been stripped from his lungs. For the first time he looks at Ianto. Sees the high flush on pale cheeks, the sharp downturn of his lips. "You want me to tell you that it's possible."

"I'm not an idiot, Jack," Ianto says testily and Jack reads disgust in his expression. Reads the betrayal. _You're not good enough,_ it says, and Jack knows it's true but he hates to see it nonetheless.

"Then stop acting like one!" and suddenly Jack is yelling again, patience at an end, everything at an end. He presses his hands into his eyes, wishing this would go away, wishing he could push a button on his wrist strap and be taken somewhere else, anywhere else. A crater on Mars would be preferable to this moment with this man.

"You know," Ianto says and his voice is calm. Too calm. Jack wants to take him by the arms and shake him. "When you held that gun to my head I thought, _I deserve this._ I wouldn't have done any different, but still. I'd have deserved it."

"You betrayed me, Ianto. You _lied."_

"I know. But sometimes you have to. Don't you?"

And Jack doesn't say anything. Can't. He stares at Ianto and he smiles, that smile he's perfected that doesn't mean a thing. "I guess you do," he says finally. He looks away. "Train to catch."

"I'll meet you there," Ianto says. "See you later."

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk."

"Where?"

"See you later, Jack."

"Ianto!"

Ianto doesn't answer. Keeps walking and Jack wants to go after him but also doesn't. Wants to let him go, wants to let him keep walking forever for all he cares. Because he doesn't care. He doesn't fucking care. He watches him go, watches him walk away. Lets him.


	48. Friday Evening - Jack

It's three-thirty and Jack tells himself he isn't concerned. The train leaves at a quarter past four and if he gets a cab now he should, with luck, just be able to make it. 

Except that Ianto isn't here. 

It's been nearly two hours now. He should have been back. Jack's packed both their belongings. Had hesitated on Ianto's things but as the time to leave had ticked closer, minute by minute, he'd finally started stuffing things into the small suitcase Ianto had brought, torn between being helpful and making sure things would come out as creased as possible. Now, standing in their empty room, two suitcases beside him, Jack knows he needs to make a decision.

"Fuck," he sighs, and picks up their bags and goes down to the lobby where he calls a cab. The whole drive to the train station he tells himself he's not looking out for Ianto. Tells himself he doesn't care.

He makes the train, just. He has time to stow the bags and find a seat, and as the alarm goes off for the all aboard, Jack suddenly swears, ignoring the scandalised look from the woman across the aisle and runs back out onto the platform where he barely makes it before the doors seal and seconds later the train is on its way.

Their luggage is on its way, too.

He swears again.

Ianto is going to kill him.

He fishes his cell phone out of his pocket and calls the Hub.

 _"Aliens-R-Us,"_ says Owen's voice on the other end of the line.

"Owen, I need you to do something."

_"Our fearless leader. How's London? Are you and the tea boy having a good time shagging your way through all the tourist spots? Has he murdered anyone else yet?"_

"Right, where the hell is Gwen?"

 _"Here, Jack!"_ tinny over the speakerphone.

"Gwen, I need you to do something."

_"Oi! What about me?"_

_"Shut up, Owen."_ Tosh. Bless her.

"Gwen?"

_"Still here. What do you need?"_

"The train from London is arriving in Cardiff at 18:23. In the last Business Class carriage are mine and Ianto's suitcases. I need you to go collect them."

_"Is everything okay, Jack?"_

_"What the hell, Jack?"_

"Gwen! Did you get that?"

_"I heard you. Yeah, I'm on it."_

_"Jack!"_

_"Jack, is everything okay?"_

_"What the hell happened to 'don't call me till Monday unless the world is ending then only let me know so I can make sure to get in one last shag'?"_

"Tosh, are you there?"

_"Here. Still. What's going on?"_

"Listen, I need you to track Ianto's phone and text me the coordinates."

_"Shit, what the hell has that wanker gone and done now?"_

_"Shut up, Owen!"_

"Thank you, Gwen. Tosh, do you copy that?"

_"Got it. Is he okay?"_

"Fine, we just got separated."

_"Why don't you just text him then?"_

_"Owen, will you bloody shut up?"_

"Thanks, team," Jack says above Owen's snarling comeback and quickly hangs up.

He stands in the train station, staring at his phone. A minute passes before the text alert lights up and he closes his eyes and feels like an idiot when he reads it. Of course.

 

* * * * *

 

It takes an hour and half to get to Canary Wharf from Paddington Station and there are tolls. Jack is reminded of one of the many reasons he had left this city in the first place.

Once there, it doesn't take long to find Ianto at all. He heads for the jagged empty-eyed tower that stands out like a contusion against the glittering glass backdrop and finds Ianto with a cup of coffee, sitting on the fountain in Cabot Square. The sun hangs low in the sky, making his shadow long, and Jack deliberately steps into it, stopping with his feet right inside the dark oval of Ianto's head.

Ianto doesn't look up and Jack doesn't know if he wants to go to him.

"Costa?" Jack says from where he stands. "Really?"

Ianto glances down at the cup in his hand and grimaces. Still doesn't say anything.

"Would it help," Jack says after a few seconds have passed, "If I apologised?"

For a second Jack thinks Ianto is going to keep ignoring him. But then he sighs. Shrugs.

"For what?"

"Depends. What do you want me to apologise for?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter."

"That's what I said."

Ianto jaw tightens and he doesn't answer.

Jack sighs, scrubs at his face and tries to think of what to say. "I almost got on the train, you know," he says. "Actually I did. Got off again, though."

"Should've gone."

"Yeah well, I sort of checked us out of the hotel."

"Did you leave my luggage at least?"

"Um. No, I sort of took it."

For the first time Ianto looks at him, exasperation clear on his face. "Planning on holding my suit for ransom, were you?"

"Probably would have worked."

Ianto snorts. "Probably would have. I suppose it's too much to hope you remembered to take the suitcases off the train again."

"Yeah...about that..."

Ianto sighs. Pulls his phone out of his pocket.

"Already called them," Jack says. "Gwen's going to get them."

Ianto looks genuinely surprised and Jack glares at him. "You know, I am capable of thinking some things through."

"Sure," Ianto agrees but doesn't sound particularly convinced. He takes a sip of his coffee. Makes a face. "If I quit," he says slowly, "I don't suppose you'd let me have the coffee machine."

"Nope. I'm holding it hostage."

"Why?"

"Why am I holding it hostage?"

"Yeah. Why do you care?" and he looks at Jack, eyes wide, asking for something.

Jack just looks at him for a second and he realises, with a pang, that they're back at the beginning. They've gone back to three weeks ago and Jack has just found Ianto, starved and desperate on a stained mattress and they hate each other all over again.

Jack goes to him then, sits down in the space beside him and tries not to notice the way Ianto shuffles slightly to the side, a few inches further away.

"I care," he says, because it's the easiest thing to say and the closest to the truth he thinks either of them will ever be able to manage. "Will you leave?"

"I don't know. Could I have stopped it, Jack?"

"Maybe. I don't know. If you weren't caught. If you'd gone softly. Waited, watched, gone above their heads without anyone finding out. Maybe."

"Could you have?"

"Probably. Yes. I think so."

"Why didn't you?" And there's no accusation in it. Nothing but curiosity, and Jack realises suddenly that of all the people who might judge him, here was the one person who wouldn't.

"I have family."

"What kind of family?"

"The kind of family you lie for."

He doesn't look at Ianto but he sees him nod out of the corner of his eye.

"When I first realised what London was doing I sent them an email. They wrote back. _It's fine, everything's under control._ It wasn't, of course. Everything just got worse. Every ghost shift the hole just got bigger, the cracks wider. So I called them next time. Told them to stop. Sent them readings, thinking maybe they just hadn't realised...Same thing as before. _It's fine, we're in control, don't worry about a thing._ So I told them, I'm going to the Queen if I have to. The press. The States. The Middle-East. Everyone, everywhere. And that's when I got the photos. You know, the ones with the little crosses over their faces, like sights on a gun. I hadn't even known where they were. I kind of forgot about them, honestly," and he laughs at himself, at what he's become. "They'd been hidden from me. Deliberately. And now here they were, in black and white. Not even realising how important they'd suddenly become. The most important people in the universe."

"Were they worth it?"

"Was Lisa?"

"I don't know."

"Yeah. Neither do I."

"Would you do it again?"

"Would you?"

"Would you stop me again?"

"Yep."

"Then yeah, I'd do it again."

Jack laughs, short and sharp. "That's the problem, Ianto Jones. There's no one to stop me. Just me."

"You were willing to risk it this time, though. Coming here with me, threatening them all."

"It wasn't much of a threat. The danger was over. They knew they'd fucked up."

"Still. Thanks."

"Don't," he says sharply and he's horrified by the break in his own voice.

Ianto nods. "Here," he says and holds out the coffee.

Jack takes it. Drinks. It's cold and tastes terrible. "Is this penance?"

"Sure. When's the next train?"

Jack checks his watch. "No idea."

Ianto doesn't even roll his eyes. Just squints up at the broken edges of Torchwood One, it's jagged edges limned with red in the setting sun. "Only a few weeks ago they were still finding bodies," he says. "I told Lisa about it. Four hundred and sixty seven corpses. Or bits of corpses. They pulled the last one out on my birthday. The rest...into the Void. I think about them all the time. Three hundred and twenty-nine of them. Do you think they're still alive? Still conscious?"

Jack doesn't even hesitate. "No," he lies. "The Void wasn't meant to be survivable."

Ianto nods. "The building comes down this month. I'm glad I saw it before it did."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Remind myself it's over, I guess. That it really happened. That they're all really gone."

"That Lisa's gone?"

Ianto doesn't say anything and Jack looks over at him and sees the tightness in his jaw, the wetness in his eyes. He reaches over, puts a hand on Ianto's knee and tries not to mind when Ianto flinches away.

"We should go," Ianto says and stands up. He tries to smile. "Don't forget your coffee."

Jack huffs. "Sadist."

 

* * * * *

 

It's another five hours before they manage to get back to Cardiff. Neither of them say more than is absolutely necessary.

Owen is there in the SUV waiting for them when they arrive and he is looking abashed, an expression that doesn't sit well on his abrasive features. Their suitcases are in the back seat and Ianto doesn't look at him when he climbs in beside them and doesn't say a word when they pull up at the Future Inn and he gets out. When he's through the doors of the hotel, not once looking back, Owen drives on, heading back to the Hub.

"Track our phones?" Jack says.

"Yep, Tosh's idea. I would've left you both to rot."

"Thanks."

"No problem. Tea boy okay?"

Jack looks at him. "Is that it? The full sentence?"

"I can't ask?"

"I didn't think you cared."

"Yeah well. When you told Tosh to track his phone we all saw where he went."

"So?"

"So. I got to thinking. If Katie'd been there I reckon I would've done the same."

"You reckon?"

"Yeah. I mean probably not. I'm not stupid like he is. But I get it."

Jack is silent for a minute, watching the city slide past in darkness. _Home,_ he thinks, and is startled by the truth in that thought.

"Gwen yelled at you, didn't she?" Jack says.

The silence is embarrassed. "She made a good point or two. Everyone's got to have one once in a while. Matter of probability, nothing to get excited about."

"Right."

"That doesn't mean I forgive him. He still almost killed us all."

"Okay."

"Okay? Just like that? You're not going to make me play nice?"

"If I did that you'd just make his life even more miserable. Anyway, he might not come back."

"Oh yeah? Finally fired his sorry arse, huh?"

"No, I think he might quit."

 _"What?"_ And Owen actually sounds outraged at the idea. "That's bullshit. What the hell else is he going to do?"

"I didn't ask. Anyway, he might not. What do you care anyway, you don't even like him."

"Who the hell else are we going to find who knows how to work that coffee machine? And besides, that bloody pterodactyl's had the runs since he left."

"I'm sure he appreciates knowing how important he is to the team."

"Yeah well. Makes it easier having him around, doesn't it?"

"You should mention that to him once in awhile."

Owen snorts. "Yeah, right. I'll just be sure to bake him a cake while I'm at it. Get bent, Harkness."

Jack laughs. _Yep,_ he thinks. _Home._

 


	49. Saturday-Monday - Jack

There is another lull in the Rift, four days filled with nothing more than a scattering of Weevil sightings that leaves Jack feeling restless and unsettled, unhappy in the confinement of the Hub. He gives the team the weekend off and spends almost all of Saturday staring at the monitors and hoping for something to come through. The police radio crackles in the background and he waits for something, anything suspicious sounding to grab his attention. A strange noise. The slightest mention of the colour blue. A sudden gust of temporal winds. But Cardiff is quiet for once, and Jack is frustrated. He's never felt more a prisoner of this planet than he does right now

On Saturday night he goes to bed and it's only after he spends an hour staring at the hole in the ceiling above him that he realises how quickly those few days with Ianto had gotten him back into the habit of sleeping. Of being able to sleep. He gets up after another two hours of trying to find unconsciousness, even more frustrated than he was before, and spends the time until daybreak wandering the lower levels of the Hub and plotting surveillance points for camera installations. He marks one point near the door to Lisa's room. Another one at the juncture of corridors leading to Ianto's storage cupboard. He takes a second to glance inside, though he's aware that it's been emptied, had himself helped Ianto drag the old mattress to a storage space in the upper levels where the damp wouldn't be able to eat it away. He stares into that tiny space nevertheless, mind blank, trying to dredge up some kind of emotion other than frustration and helplessness, but he can't. He slams the door closed again harder than he needs to.

By Sunday afternoon he reemerges into the main levels feeling chilled and damp. There are miles of tunnels he knows, but most of them are locked behind steels doors rusted shut. He looks for the blueprints but can't find them anywhere and almost texts Ianto to ask him if he knows where they are, but stops himself at the last minute, oddly reluctant. He wonders if this is just stubbornness, if he's just waiting for Ianto to make contact first, but it's not. He's afraid.

He doesn't know where they left off, what happened to them. On Friday morning he had woken up from sleep, curled up with Ianto on the floor of their hotel room. By Friday evening they'd barely been speaking, not a single word passing between them the entire two hour train journey back home. The first time Ianto had spoken since leaving London had been when he'd seen Owen, standing by that familiar SUV, and then it had been a low _“fuck sake”_ layered in exasperation and distaste. There had been nothing after that, not even when they'd reached the hotel and he'd clambered out of the back seat as though it was something disgusting stuck to his suit. He hadn't even looked back when he'd reached the doors. Jack had been watching for him to do so. He'd been _waiting_ for him to do so. But he hadn't.

Now it's Sunday afternoon and Jack is hungry and also becoming angry again. At himself, at Ianto.

He goes out to buy lunch. Sushi. Brings it back to the Hub because he's too restless to sit at a table and pretend to be civilised.

He eats while pacing, stepping around the detritus of his office, and it's only when he trips over a pair of his own shoes that he looks around at three weeks of coffee cups and take away containers and his paper bin spilling over onto the floor. There is clothing draped across every available surface and the places where there isn't there is a noticeable layer of dust. And it smells. A faint aroma of mold and things quietly rotting. He stops, teriyaki beef hanging off of his chopsticks, and wonders when he's stopped being able to manage for himself. He looks out the window and onto the landscape of the central Hub and is a little bit shocked to see the accumulation of trash that covers the workstations like a bad rash. Were they always like this before Ianto came along? Was this really how they'd managed to survive before Ianto? Or had they gotten worse, simply assuming that he'd come along to clean up after them?

He thinks of that file he'd created, the updated list of job titles for Ianto Jones. But none of the items had been new. They were all things he already did, jobs he'd long since taken on. Not for the first time Jack thinks of all the things they'd begun depending on Ianto for, all the invisible and unacknowledged tasks they never thought about themselves. And for the first time, looking out over the mess of their lives, he actually realises what all that actually means.

It's going to change. It has to change. Starting Monday. Starting now. Sunday afternoon, in his office. 

He begins by collecting the litter, finding bin bags under the sink in the kitchen. He fills an entire large black bag with the trash just from his office and he ties it off and throws it outside the door to get rid of later. He moves onto his clothing after that, sorting through what's clean and what needs to be washed as he goes. He folds and straightens and puts away in the wardrobe in his bunker, then taking the pile of dirty items in one arm and the bin bag in the other he heads for the lower level where he heads first for the washing machine and then immediately regrets it as he opens the door to the laundry room and is hit in the face with the smell of rot. There, sitting on the floor, are the towels and blood-covered clothes from three weeks ago. Still waiting for him to get around to them. He wonders what the hell is wrong with him and swears he won't ever tell Ianto about this. Ever.

He doesn't try to salvage them. He takes them with the bin bag and tosses them all together into the incinerator, then goes back and actually does his laundry. It feels weirdly domestic and he again resists the urge to text Ianto. What would he even say?  _Doing the laundry, wish you were here._ Smooth, Harkness.

Back in his office he goes on to the next thing. Artefacts and then paperwork, sorting and filing, putting everything into piles to be dealt with after. By the time he's hungry again it's after eight and he can see the end of it. His office hasn't been this neat for ages. Ianto had never been so tactless as to come in and simply clean, but in small increments he had managed to turn disorder into order until Jack hadn't even realised things had changed at all until one day he'd reached for something and actually found it, precisely where he needed it to be. Ianto's methods were very like Ianto himself; invisible until one had to learn how to live without them.

Now, however, Jack is looking for a transformation, for something radical and changed, and with a ruthless efficiency he goes through each and every object on his desk, in his office, puts aside the ones that are broken, the ones he's never known the purpose for, the ones he's inherited from Alex that had never meant a thing to him but that he hadn't ever before considered getting rid of. He dusts beneath every object. He cleans every single one of them until the air feels furry in his lungs and his fingers are dark with dirt. When he's finished, it's past eleven and he's starving. He orders pizza from Jubilee's and goes up to the tourist office where he passes the time by dusting there as well.

When his pizza comes he eats in the tourist office with the door to the Quay open, the lights off so as not to attract any wayward travellers. The air is cool and damp and the smell of the petrol from the engines is almost entirely impossible to detect over the smell of the salt water and the coming rain. There is almost no noise except the growl of an occasional boat engine and the slap of water on the concrete pier.

When he's finished, he puts the empty box with a neat stack of cardboard and paper that Ianto's set aside for recycling, then goes back to his office where he drags up the Hoover from its station by the kitchen, then gets down on his hands and knees and actually scrubs at the sealed concrete floor, raising up ancient dirt, finding all the old stains that not even Jack remembers being created. Then he sets up Ianto's space heater and turns it on, letting it burn up the lingering dampness in the air, and goes to take a shower.

When he comes back, his office is gleaming and filled with warmth. He turns off the heater and sits at his desk, surveying this space that he's reclaimed from himself. He is bone weary and content in a way he hasn't been for days and he actually thinks he might sleep. He remembers he hasn't changed the sheets on his bed for three weeks, however, and while normally it wouldn't bother him the idea of it now sends his skin crawling. So he lays down on the couch in his office instead, pulling his coat up over him like a blanket and within minutes he is drifting, the hum of his home singing him to sleep.

 

* * * * *

 

He wakes up to the sound of the door alarm and Owen, calling up from the below.

“Oi! What's the point of me showing up early with coffee if I'm the first one bloody here!”

Jack groans, stretching muscles sore from a night on an unfamiliar surface. The aches of his cleaning frenzy yesterday have already faded. In ten minutes the rest of them will be gone as well.

He pushes himself upright, yawning and groggy from the unaccustomed amount of sleep. He's wearing jogging bottoms and a loose tshirt and he doesn't want to be seen like this in front of Owen, not even for coffee, so he climbs down into his hole first, pulling on clean clothes, before going out to meet him.

Owen's sprawled on Jack's couch when he climbs back up to his office, a cup of coffee in his hand and a second one on Jack's desk.

“Don't know how you drink it so I got it black,” he says unapologetically.

Jack shrugs. He takes a sip and desperately misses Ianto.

“Did you bribe tea boy to come by and clean up for you?” Owen asks.

“Nope. What are you doing here, it's not even nine?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“No Rift alert? We're lucky to see you by ten on most days.”

“Maybe I fancied a change. So how's tea boy anyway?”

“Dunno, haven't seen him.”

“Bullshit.”

Jack shrugs. “Been busy.”

Owen looks pointedly around the immaculate office. “Is that what you call it?”

“Hey, don't knock it. It's your turn today.”

“My turn?”

“All of us.  _Cleaning.”_

_“What?_ Tea boy really quit then?”

Jack gives him a speaking look. “Not yet, but he probably will if he comes back to find this.”

Owen opens his mouth to protest but Jack doesn't give him the chance.

“I'll make up a roster before the ladies come in. We'll split it up evenly between us. Shouldn't take more than a day.”

_“A day!”_

“Thanks for the coffee, Owen. Conference room at ten thirty, let Tosh and Gwen know when they get in.”

“This is bullshit!”

“And you just volunteered to clean Janet's enclosure.”

_“What!”_

“It's that or Myfanwy's nest, take your choice.”

“Tea boy better not bloody quit after this, that's all I'm saying.”

Jack lets him go, trying not to grin. He sips at his coffee and looks around at his office, at everything exactly where he wants it. There's a stack of paperwork to still go over but he ignores it for a little while longer, reaching instead for the box of broken and random objects he'd collected. He sifts through it, wondering if any of it would be worth trying to fix and decides that it would be for no other reason than to see if he could. 

Most of them are alien, some of the familiar, but one or two are distinctly Earth originated and he pulls them out first. One is a book, spine missing and pages loose. It's bundled together with a rubber band, the clapboard covers faded and scuffed. He peers at the title page and finds it to be a first edition of  _Frankenstein._ Alex's. He had loved that story. 

He sets it aside and picks up the next item. A stopwatch, old fashioned as stopwatches had to be in that day and age. It has a clear glass face, plain steel casing, and a knob on the top. There's a fob chain attached to it and as Jack stares at it he has a sudden vision of Ianto, crouched on the deck of the  _Estelle,_ timing the minutes it took for a woman to die again.

He puts everything else away.

At ten-thirty, Owen sticks his head into the office.

“Oi!”

Jack looks up from the cogs and gears and miniscule springs.

“Meeting in the conference room?”

“Oh, right.”

“What the hell are you doing now?”

“Just seeing if any of this junk is salvageable. Come on, sport, ready to get dirty?”

Owen scowls.


	50. Tuesday Morning - Jack

On Tuesday morning, Jack wakes up. There is a light on beside him, the reading lamp appropriated from Ianto's storage cupboard. There is a book open on his chest and it takes him a second to realise that he must have fallen asleep reading.

The hole of his bunker is closed above him but the small space is bathed in the warm light of the low wattage bulb and Jack wonders that in all these years he never considered bringing a light down here. Probably because the only time he spent down here was when he was too exhausted for anything other than sleep. It's weirdly comforting now, though, the world closed off. Him and his book, this tiny universe that he can imagine for a little while was created just for him.

He looks at the time and sees that it's after six. Stretching, he sits up, pushing aside the blankets that still smell like the dryer sheets he'd found in the laundry room that he's sure he never bought. He'd also noticed that the machines themselves are brand new and he wonders when that happened. He admits, however, that it's nice to not have to wait five hours for three towels to dry. He nearly texts Ianto again, _Nice machines, when did I sign for those?_ But again stops himself.

It's been three days. He wonders when Ianto will call.

It'll be a few hours before anyone shows up for work so he climbs up the ladder without bothering to change and emerges into his office with another stretch. He settles at his desk and turns on the monitor. He doesn't have much use for privacy, especially not when it comes to his people, so without thinking twice about it he logs into Ianto's email.

However much he's avoiding Jack, he certainly isn't avoiding Torchwood. His inbox and sent folder are crowded with messages. Final payment details to the electricians and plumbers, another put-off from the stone mason. Several emails back and forth between him and Helen and one rather flirtatious one from the nurse. (Tish? Tasha?) An email from Quintin Lowe asking if Ianto will come back to London for further discussion regarding the Survivor Fund on Wednesday and a reply from Ianto telling him that he'll be available for a conference call that afternoon but won't be able to make it into the city for again for the next few weeks at least. Quintin's response is sarcastic but accepting and Ianto's reply to that is gloriously earnest. There are also several emails regarding flats and houses around the city, but only one that has a positive response. A terraced house on Craiglee Drive, less than twenty minutes walk from the Hub.

Jack isn't even aware he's made the decision until he's dressed and halfway up the invisible lift. Then he almost turns back but decides that since he's up he might as well get some coffee.

To be fair, he does get coffee.

Twenty-eight minutes later he stands in front of a low red brick wall and tries to inconspicuously peer through the greenery fronting the small two storey house. The street is quiet, a dead-end residential street made up of terraced houses. It's only seventy thirty but families are already beginning to stir, lights coming on, newspapers being retrieved. Jack knows he can't stay here long, that he's going to attract attention soon, but a certain curiosity keeps him still. He hears a child's voice from somewhere nearby and he wonders if this is who Ianto really is: a red brick house with a garden and a garage, children and families and newspapers on the doorstep every morning. It seems weirdly at odds with the man who hid a Cyber conversion unit in his basement, but he realises, rather belatedly, that he doesn't actually know Ianto at all.

“Jack?”

He starts, whirling. Standing in the middle of the road, holding a cup of coffee in his hand, is Ianto.

“Oh,” Jack says. “Hey. Just. Uh. Walking.”

Ianto rolls his eyes. “You were looking at my emails.”

Jack shrugs and crooks a grin. “Just checking up. Making sure you're not getting into the wrong crowd.”

Ianto doesn't say anything but the look he gives Jack is speaking. He comes up and stands beside him and together they stare at the red brick house.

“Nice garden,” Jack finally says. “Could probably stand to be cut back a bit.”

“I like my privacy.”

“Ah.”

“What are you doing here?”

Jack shrugs. “Just walking.”

Ianto snorts.

“Walking with an end in mind. I like knowing where my employees are living.”

Ianto doesn't say anything. Doesn't need to. They're both thinking about a storage cupboard in the basement of the Hub.

“It's nice here,” Jack says after a minute. “Very domestic.”

Ianto shrugs, glances around. “It's quiet, it's close to the Quay.”

“There are some nice flats along the Bay, even closer.”

Ianto doesn't say anything, just continues to stare at the small house in front of him, and suddenly Jack understands.

“You know,” he says, “One day we're going to have an alien appear in a tall building and you're going to have to go in there.”

Ianto doesn't look at him but Jack can see the slow flush creeping up on his pale cheeks. “Maybe. Doesn't mean I have to live there.”

“I can hold your hand if you want,” Jack says and waggles his eyebrows.

Ianto gives him a scathing look and he chuckles. They stare at the house.

“You know,” Jack says after a minute, “I distinctly remember something about a front porch.”

And the moment the words are out of his mouth he regrets them. At his side, Ianto goes still. Jack doesn't look at him. Can't.

“Jack.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “I know.”

“It was a mistake.”

_No. It wasn't. It wasn't a mistake._ “I know.”

“I shouldn't have—I wasn't ready. I'm so sorry.”

And that's when Jack realises. It wasn't London that had been the problem: it had been Cardiff before that. All London had done was bring them back to reality.  _Cardiff_ had been the dream, the mistake. Jack remembers the feeling of unreality on that first morning they'd made love. He remembers leaving Ianto in the doorway of his room and kissing him, trying to imprint this feeling onto his body, trying to turn it into something solid. It had been too good, too fast. Real life didn't work like that. And here was his proof.  _It was a mistake._ He hates so much that he knows Ianto is right.

“It was a mistake,” Jack says and can't help how cold his voice sounds when he says it. At his side, Ianto stiffens and then sighs.

“Jack—”

“Doesn't matter,” Jack says. “It was my fault anyway.”

“That's not—”

“Listen, last week of suspension,” he interrupts. He forces the cheerfulness he doesn't feel into his voice, paints that familiar grin onto his face. “Don't work it all away, you're not getting another holiday like this any time soon. I'll see you next Monday? Call me if you need help with anything.”

_Don't call me. Don't call me._

_Please, call me._

“Jack—”

“See ya, Ianto!” And he's gone with a wave of his hand. He's gone with a last smile.


	51. Tuesday - Ianto

Ianto takes the house, signing a lease for a year. He pays the first six months upfront in cash and the landlord gives him a slightly boggled look as he takes it. Ianto doesn't mention that it's just in case he dies. He leaves the man with Jack as his emergency contact number, figuring he's the safest bet. Also, apart from Rhi, there simply isn't anyone else, and if something should happen to him he doesn't want a call from his landlord to be how she finds out.

He's left with a considerably lighter bank account by then, but still enough to buy the basic furniture requirements. Bed, sofa, a book case, coffee table, kitchen table and chairs. He goes for light coloured wood where he can. He arranges to have them delivered on the first of November, then moves on to the curtains, curtain rods, and a set of tools. It's not until he gets to the point where he starts to think about bedding and dish sets that he realises that if he keeps going like this he's not going to have enough cash to buy coffee and food supplies. He considers using his credit card, but the zero sitting on his account is something he's reluctant to disturb, so he leaves it. Starts a list instead of everything he still needs to be able to function in a flat on his own.

For the first time he thinks of his long forgotten flat in London. Even if it hadn't been in Lisa's name, he'd left no forwarding contact information when he'd fled the city, thinking of nothing but getting Lisa as far away from that place as possible. He'd emptied their accounts and closed them down, starting everything new in Cardiff, wanting no reminder of that place, nothing in his own mind to link him with what had happened. Like a charm, he'd been hoping that if he severed enough ties it could somehow be made not to have happened at all.

He eats an early dinner at the hotel before heading back to his room, inexplicably tired for a day spent doing nothing but looking at things, and the moment he closes the door behind him he regrets coming back here.

Jack. Everything here is Jack. The uncomfortable sofa, the enormous bed, the light coming in through the window, the hints of open sky above the invisible Bay, the top floor of this too-tall building that he'd felt oddly at home in. Jack. Because of Jack.

He turns around and leaves again, no idea where he's going to go. It seems pointless to check out when he has less than a week before he moves anyway, but he does request a room change. Smaller bed, smaller room, no bath. The concierge gives him a quizzical look but doesn't say anything, simply hands him his new room key and asks if he'll need help moving his things. He says no. His handful of books and spare suits are still at the Hub, in storage behind the tourist office. The rest encompasses only the things Jack had brought for him, a handful of paperwork and contract agreements from his work with Flat Holm, and several new novels. He manages to pack everything into the laptop bag and into the half a dozen plastic shopping bags they'd first come to him in, then without a backwards glance he shuts the door behind him and goes to find his new room.

A single room, smaller, with a double bed, and no bath. The view is of the courtyard out front, only three floors down, the golf course off to the left.

It's perfect. He puts everything away neatly then goes down to the bar with one of his books where he orders cider and sits in a booth by himself. It's not a bad day, he thinks. It should have been a good day. Except the spectre of Jack from that morning hangs over it. _It was a mistake._ He hadn't been lying. Had sworn he would never lie to him again. And yet...he should have lied. He should have.

He reads to forget and drinks because he wants to, for the bite of the apple and the alcohol, and because part of him wants Jack to find him, to sit down next to him and grin his crooked grin and simply talk. 

But he understands he's lost that right.

_It was a mistake._

It was. But not like that.

He misses Jack, but not like that.

He thinks of Lisa. He closes his eyes and thinks of brown eyes and black hair and his hand, uncallused back then, sliding over dark skin, silk and velvet, steel and diamond underneath. She'd been beautiful. She'd been too good for him. Had always been too good for him even before he'd brought her here, to the place where she'd been killed. That morning, the morning of the end of the world, she had smiled at him across their pillows. They had fought the night before. She had told him,  _enough._ And he had promised he would be better, that he would make them better, and today, that day, the day the world ended, was supposed to have been the first day of the rest of their lives. He would marry her, he'd sworn. He would be everything she deserved.

He actually laughs then, hunched over his book, his cider, seeing neither, because the irony is nearly unspeakable and there isn't anything else he can do but laugh. He giggles like a maniac, his hands over his face until someone taps on his shoulder and he looks up through his tears to find the hotel manager looking at him with some concern.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, trying to control his laughter. “The book. It's very funny.”

They smile politely and still look unsure. “Is everything alright, Mr Jones? The concierge tells me you requested a room change.”

“Oh, yes. Sorry, I'm willing to pay the price of the original room. It's a lovely room. Just needed a change.”

“Of course.” They clearly think he's mad. “Do you need something else?”

Ianto is no longer laughing but he's still grinning and he can tell they're asking entirely to make sure he's not drunk.

“No, everything is great, thanks.”

“Okay,” the manager says and tries not to look entirely doubtful, smiling just a little bit too worriedly before leaving Ianto alone.

He watches them go then scrubs at his face. Jack's about to get a phone call, if he hasn't already. Ianto tries not to hope that he'll show up.


	52. Friday Afternoon - Jack

Jack doesn't watch Ianto. All week he avoids going anywhere near Craiglee Drive. Avoids the hotel like the plague. A weevil alert pops up on the golf course and he sends Owen and Gwen to deal with it, telling Tosh to keep him updated over the CCTV.

He sits in his office and stares at his paperwork until Gwen and Owen come back, sweating and grinning, elation clear on their faces, in the glances they pass between them. Jack thinks he sees something there but isn't sure.

He calls Gwen into his office after to talk to her, to ask, but he's afraid of knowing the answer and in the end he simply asks her how she's doing, if she's managing to fit in. He remembers his failure with Ianto and he listens to her talking, searching for some sign of discontent, some sign of inner anguish. But she is loving it, he can see the addiction in her face. When he asks about Rhys there is the faintest hint of guilt and Jack, intimately familiar with that emotion, sees it for what it is. Not the guilt of being forced to exclude a partner, but the guilt of enjoying the exclusion. She's different, Gwen Cooper. Has been made for larger things. The problem is, she knows it. Jack recognises this in her because it was his own feelings on the Boeshane Peninsula. He'd been special. Chosen for bigger things, chosen for the Time Agency, chosen to be the first to play with toys humanity hadn't played with ever before. He remembers the slight pity with which he'd viewed the rest of the world, the sure knowledge that he _deserved_ this. That his whole life had been leading up to this confirmation of his personal prowess, that it was just a matter of time before the rest of the universe looked at him and saw how special he was, too.

And look at him now. One hundred and sixty years later and he would give everything in the world to be normal. He thinks of Ianto's red brick house, his garden and his garage, and he doesn't blame him a bit.

So he lets Gwen talk, listens to her and tries to think of the things he might have listened to when he had been where she is all those years ago, but there's nothing. Nothing that will breed anything other resentment and he doesn't think he can manage to do that.

He listens and he nods and he watches the emotions, the eagerness flickering over her face. She looks like a child, that gap in her tooth doing nothing to dispel the illusion, and he wonders if there is a way to keep that there, to keep her from becoming what the rest of them have become. Her naivety, so frustrating at times, is also the thing that he envies in her the most. He wishes with everything he was that he could go back to this point in his own timeline and stay there.

Eventually her words run out and she sits there, flushed and pleased looking, like a child given a treat, and he tells what he tells the others. _Come to me, talk to me, my door is always open._ He tells her to guard what she has with Rhys, not to let it drift. He gives her the pamphlet made up in the seventies during Torchwood's biggest recruitment years, about appropriate lies to tell one's family, about believable cover stories about counter-terrorism and Special Operations and the Official Secrets Act, about how much information is too much information and how much is safe to give.

He knows, even as she takes it, that she won't use it. She enjoys this secrecy too much. Enjoys the excuses it gives her, the easy outs. He recognises that from his own stock of faults, as well.

After she leaves the office he watches as the team packs up, gathering around each other, already planning their night at Salt. Tosh looks up to see him watching and waves him down and he grins his acquiescence. He's missed too many nights with them already. Gwen's not the only one who lets things drift.

So he goes to the bar, noisy and crowded, and as he watches Owen get up to take their order to the counter as he always does, he remembers what Ianto said and trying not to grin he waves him back into his seat.

“I'll get it this time,” he says and watches Owen try to form some sort of protest. When he returns with their drinks he hands them out and tries not to watch Owen's face as he sips resignedly at his glass only to have his expression transform into one of deepest suspicion.

“What's wrong Owen?” Tosh asks immediately. “Did he get you something fruity?” She and Gwen burst out laughing and Jack tries hard not to smirk.

“IPA, like you usually get. Isn't that right?” Jack asks innocently and Owen narrows his eyes at him.

“Yeah, that's right,” he says cautiously and takes a long swallow. “Love that Brains.”

“I got Brains too,” Tosh says and blushes and Jack wonders what it is about Owen that turns his beautiful genius into a stammering teen.

“Cranberry vodka,” Gwen says, flourishing her own glass. “You know all our favourites, do you, Jack?”

“He's a good boss,” Tosh says and smiles at him and Jack feels like the greatest hack alive. He wonders what would happen if he told them that his knowledge came from Ianto's superior stalking skills. He imagines Tosh's shocked flush, Owen's blustering outrage, Gwen's quiet indignation, and decides that it's a secret best left alone. He sips his water and tries not to think of Ianto's own favourite drink, of him probably sitting with it on his own barely twenty minutes away and he remembers the call on his cell on Tuesday night, the hotel manager's slightly alarmed voice reaching him over the line.

_“He's drinking again.”_

“How much?”

_“Craddock on bar says only one pint so far but I went over there. He was scaring the other guests.”_

“What was he doing?”

_“Laughing.”_

“Laughing.”

_“I mean hysterically. He said it was the book he was reading but it was a murder mystery.”_

“I think he's allowed to laugh. He's been through a lot. He's just...processing. Just let me know if he has more than three pints or he stops eating.”

_“I will. One more thing. He's switched rooms.”_

There had been a silence as Jack had thought about that. “Was there something wrong with the old one?”

_“No, he said it was fine. He just wanted something smaller. He's in room three oh-eight now.”_

“Right. As long as he's happy. Is he checking out soon?”

_“Next Tuesday. We'll discount you on the smaller room of course—”_

“No, no, don't bother. Head office is paying for it, might as well get your money's worth.”

_“That's very generous of them.”_

“They're very generous like that. Thanks, Alex.”

After he'd hung up he'd spent fifteen minutes staring at the wall, trying desperately not to read too much into Ianto's room switch, but it was impossible. There were only so many explanations one could attribute to it. Ianto's room had, in those last days, become  _their_ room. And Ianto was running away from that.

Now, sitting with the rest of his team, with these three people who actually want him there, all he can think about is Ianto and his cider. He wonders if next Friday Ianto will be sitting here with them, injecting his sly humour with pointed accuracy into their conversation. He hopes so. He dreads it. He wishes Ianto were here and he hopes never to see him again.

In his pocket his phone is resolutely silent. He fingers it, grinning at the story Gwen is telling about interdepartmental politics at the station even as he only half listens to what she's saying. He wants to send a text.

> _At the bar. Are Gwen and Owen sleeping together? I can't tell. You probably know. Miss you._

But he doesn't.

The story is over and Owen and Tosh burst out laughing and Jack joins in though he has no idea what the punchline was.

He composes text messages in his head while Owen starts to rattle on about last week's vibrating alien.

> _Miss talking to you._
> 
> _Do you remember the first time you kissed me, how drunk you were?_
> 
> _I should get you drunk again._
> 
> _Or maybe not. You seem to do just fine when you're sober._
> 
> _Seriously though. Best sex ever._
> 
> _It wasn't a mistake._

He almost sends it.

But doesn't.


	53. Sunday Night - Jack

On Sunday night Jack doesn't sleep. He lays down and waits for it to come but it never does. It's never been something he's been particularly good at, not since his ninetieth year or so, but his recent spate with a partner has lulled him, making him forget how frustrating it is to not be able to. He forgets until it happens how easy it comes when there's someone else there, as if the proximity of normal behaviour somehow makes him partly normal, too. But normality is gone again and he's once more reminded of why he had decided to avoid these messy entanglements; the transition back into himself, into whatever it is he's become, is always so frustrating.

At one o'clock he turns on the light and decides to read. One of Ianto's murder mysteries Jack had poached from his stack. It's not his usual fare but he enjoys it, and as he gets lost in the lyrical prose and the carefully drawn characters, he can feel the tiredness start to creep in, something human coming back to him in this simple act of reading when he shouldn't be.

At three-thirty he actually begins to drift, and holding onto that half-sleeping state, he slides the book off of his chest and clicks the light off. He blinks up at the hole in his ceiling, at the flickering lights of the electronics, the soothing noise of the Hub a stifled hum through the concrete walls of his bunker. And Jack sleeps. Alone in his bed, pretending to be normal.

And he dreams.

Of a train and faces he hasn't thought of in years. A dozen laughing men. _His_ men. They are bathed in shadows but it isn't dark. And when it comes, the long dark of the tunnel, it is endless and not nearly long enough. He smells the reek of flowers, sticking in his throat and making him gag. And when the lights come back, the yellow sun in long stripes between the spaced boards of the troop train, they illuminate nothing but death. A dozen men with rose petals spilling from their throats. They are the dead, again. And he is the only one left alive.

He comes awake, gasping, with almost the same wrench as when he comes back to life, something straining behind the walls of his chest, a heart attack in reverse.

He sits up, terrified of falling back asleep, of drifting off again. He swings his legs over, the concrete cold against his bare feet and he focuses on it, letting himself shiver. He puts his face in his hands and breathes, pushing the air out between his fingers, sucking it back in. It's been years since he's thought of them. Years since that first encounter. To this day the smell of roses makes him sick and as he sits in the darkness of the bunker, the filtering light is too much like a troop train, too much like the daylight sliding in through narrow slats, and he stands up, pulling on his trousers and his vest and scrambling up the ladder, suddenly desperate to get out.

And as soon as he's up, his head breaching the metal rim of the hole, he feels like a fool. He's safe. He's home. This concrete hole in the ground that encompasses everything he has is the closest thing to impenetrable there is. He's safe, if anywhere is truly safe. He breathes and tries to remember this as he leans over his desk, the polished wood cool under his hands...and there. Right there. Like a spot of blood on an expense report from Owen.

A rose petal.

He stares at it, for several seconds uncomprehending of what he's seeing, trying to understand if this is some nightmare or if there's some explanation, some logical reason for this to be here at this moment after a dream filled with their stench and the smell of the dead.

But there's nothing. Some wild burgeoning hope makes him think perhaps Ianto had brought flowers, maybe was apologising, trying to make up...

And as if conjured by this desperate thought there is a noise, the scuffle of a shoe on concrete, and Jack whirls to actually find him there. Ianto. Fully suited, freshly shaven, as if he's never left at all.

It's disconcertingly jarring. It's four o'clock in the morning and it's been three weeks since Ianto's last been here and that time he'd had a panic attack and Jack hadn't been sure if he'd make it in at all. And even now Jack realises he hadn't been completely sure, hadn't quite believed that Ianto would come back.

And hard on the heels of that thought, utterly unworthy of either of them, is the fact that it's four in the morning and the last time Jack had left unquestioned this man's odd working hours he had snuck a Cyberman into Jack's basement and now he's here again and like an accusation there is a rose petal on Jack's desk.

“You shouldn't be here,” he says, and even to him it sounds suspicious, and Ianto, buried in a file, starts at his voice and looks up.

And oh god, he's so small, so young. So _uncertain._ And Jack tries to hold on to some kind of anger, some of the irritation, the suspicion, but he can't. He stares at this _boy_ across from him and knows that he can trace every line of him in his mind's eye, can still feel his scars on the palms of his hands, can taste him if he closes his eyes and just _thinks_ about it.

“Neither should you,” Ianto says and he tries to smile but there's trepidation there that Jack doesn't remembers having seen in him before. It is startlingly exposed for Ianto Jones.

Just for a second, as they stare at each other through the open door of Jack's office, Jack thinks Ianto will say something. Watches that inhalation, those lips he knows, he can still taste, as they part and Jack doesn't realises he's holding his own breath, waiting for Ianto to say it.

_It wasn't a mistake._

And then Ianto's eyes flicker away and he's moving off and it actually occurs to Jack to seriously wonder what he's doing here. He remembers that second's worth of suspicion and he feels ashamed but the curiosity is still there because whatever this is, this is not normal timing, and he swore, he  _swore_ this would never happen again, that he would never let this young man fade away from them again.

Jack goes after him, to the terminal outside his office where Ianto perches on a stool and Jack, because he misses him, because he wants to, because he  _needs_ to, reaches out and touches him. Just his shoulder, through three layers of material, but he tries to put every word he can't say into the touch, and even when Ianto starts, almost flinches away, Jack doesn't move his hand, takes a breath and leaves it there and Ianto glances at him, the barest flicker of an eye, and there is something like apprehension in it.

“What have you got for me?” Jack asks, and under his hand Ianto straightens, Torchwood employee returning, and this time when Ianto looks back at him it's Jack who can't meet his eye, stares at the monitor past him instead.

“Funny sort of weather patterns,” Ianto says and he is waiting for something, a response, a look, but Jack can't give it him. He stares at the readings on the screen, he thinks of the rose petal in his pocket, hastily stuffed there as if it were a secret, and a glimmer of terror finds him and leaves him suddenly cold.

He pulls away and he can feel Ianto watching him but suddenly there is nothing left in him to offer. He goes back to his office, to his desk, and he knows Ianto's eyes are following him but he has nothing to say. They're back. Torchwood is back and this is their lives now. This will always be their lives, dancing from one disaster to another, and that brick house, that garden and that garage will always be the illusion.

He sits at his desk and tries to think but he's cold now and his thoughts are sluggish, coming up against a wall constructed of rose petals and the slatted illumination of yellow sunlight between boards, and he swears he can feel it, a storm blowing in from nowhere.

He becomes aware that he's shivering and realises that he is still only in his vest. He pushes himself up from his chair, intent on dressing, when there is the sudden whir of the space heater turning on and Jack looks up to find Ianto there, one hand on the switch and a cup of coffee in the other.

“Sorry,” Ianto says and Jack realises he's staring at him, for an instant Ianto's outline in his suit weirdly unfamiliar. He quickly looks away again, forcing his gaze to the pile of papers before him. The expense report is on top and he imagines he can still see the red stain of the flower petal on its margin.

The cup of coffee appears before him, settled carefully on the desk at his elbow, and Ianto is almost at the door again before Jack calls him back.

“What  _are_ you doing here?” he asks, and he makes sure it stays neutral, nothing but light curiosity in his tone.

Ianto pauses in the doorway and Jack can see him trying to decide whether or not to flee.

“Couldn't sleep,” he says finally. “You?”

Jack grimaces. “I'm surprised you need to ask.”

“Usually you find a tall building when you can't sleep,” and the words are both a question and a risk.  _Don't forget what I did,_ the words say. But  _forgive me,_ the tone implies and the Jack wants to scrub at his eyes and throw something because he thought they were past this. But they're not. They may never be. So instead he just picks up the steaming mug and inhales. 

_Oh god_ he missed this.

“I am  _so_ glad you're back,” Jack says and drinks and when Ianto doesn't say anything Jack looks up at him, sees the uncertainty on his face. “I am,” Jack says. “And not because of the coffee.”

Ianto snorts, or tries to, but the insecurity is still there and it comes out sounding halfway like a sob.

“Well,” Jack tempers. “The coffee too. But I could survive on Costa if I really had to.” He pauses, and softly, not sure he wants to know the answer: “Are you staying, Ianto?”

And for a second Ianto doesn't answer. Stares at Jack, wide-eyed and far too young and Jack has to restrain himself from getting up, going to him.

“Is it okay?” Ianto finally says and there's no hesitation in Jack's voice when he answers.

“Yes.” Emphatically. “Absolutely. We need you, Ianto.”

And Ianto smiles. For the first time genuinely smiles and there is jubilation there, the bright edges of gratification and relief. “Thank you, sir,” he says and Jack can't stop himself from grinning in return.

“One more thing,” Jack says as Ianto turns to leave. “I need you to pull up a contact for me. Estelle Cole. She's involved with fairies.”

Ianto looks quizzical. “Fairies, sir?”

“Twinkly lights and butterfly wings. She's in Cardiff.”

“Of course, sir,” and he nods and Jack watches him go, watches him back at work, in the Hub, and it's like nothing's changed at all. Except that everything has.

 


	54. Monday Morning - Ianto

It makes it better, that smile. That grin. Jack. It settles his racing heart, the stuttering anxieties in his mind. It's true he hadn't been able to sleep, but more than that he had been afraid. He hasn't seen the others since Lisa, none of them except Owen at the train station and even then he hadn't even looked him in the face. He is nervous of their judgement but also defensive.

Hours earlier, lying in his hotel room, his second last night before moving into his new place, he'd stared sleeplessly at the white ceiling and without any effort at all he had come to actively dislike each and every member of the team.

He resented Gwen and the ease with which she'd come in, the automatic respect they'd all paid her while he'd had to bow and scrape and beg to even be allowed to exist on the sidelines, the invisible man, there to serve. He resented the way she'd immediately dismissed him as unimportant, the way she still dismissed him, hadn't even seen him until Lisa had nearly killed them all and even then there'd been nothing but a condescending pity that was worse than any outright accusation could be. He preferred Owen's method, as much as he loathed him. The hostility, the blame. Ianto could deal with them because it didn't make him feel obligated. And besides, Owen wasn't worth the bother of respecting or liking in return either.

It was Tosh that worried him the most, however. Not because she noticed him, but because she of all of them would probably be the only one to notice that she _hadn't_ noticed him, and would therefore probably try to fix it. He liked Tosh, if only because he felt something of a kindred soul in her, someone else unused to being noticed, someone else who knew what it was to be invisible. But that very understanding was what would bring him to the forefront of her mind now.

Owen he could count on to ignore him. Gwen he could count on to pity him. But Tosh. Tosh would try to _notice_ him.

It had been that which had had him throw off his blankets at three o'clock and get dressed. She was always the earliest in, the first one he would have to encounter. He needed  _time._

By a quarter to four he was at the Quay. He let himself into the tourist office with his old key and in the dimness he made his way automatically behind the counter and pressed his hand to the biometric reader. It didn't even occur to him that it might not work until it did, and then he wondered if Jack had reinstated his security passes or if he'd never removed them in the first place.

And he hadn't thought that Jack would be there.

Jack didn't sleep. Or well...he did. He had. When they had been...well.

But ordinarily, Jack didn't sleep, or no more than a few hours a night. Ianto had learnt long ago that by three thirty Jack was out of the Hub, on top of a high building somewhere, and usually didn't come back till just before Tosh arrived around seven-thirty. But not here. Not in the Hub. It hadn't even occurred to Ianto that he wasn't alone until Jack had spoken, barely ten feet away, and Ianto had startled guiltily, caught out once more where he had no business being. What could he say?  _Hey, boss, decided to get an early start. Really, really early._ Jesus bloody Christ.

And Jack isn't just his boss, is he? Ianto had been expecting...he doesn't know what he'd been expecting. When that first accusation had come at him, cold, suspicious, Ianto had been hurt but it had also been...a relief? Knowing where they stood, but also that Jack seemed to be taking the professional stance. In that instant they were back to boss and misbehaving employee. Ianto had smiled and stuttered and felt his heart break but it was good. It was  _right._ It made everything so much easier.

Until Jack had touched him. Until that hand on his shoulder. It was a lover's touch, forgiving and apologetic and just a little bit clumsy, and just as quickly they were back to being friends. Lovers. Something. Ianto didn't want to be touched. He couldn't be touched. He didn't trust himself with this man. So he'd straightened, subtly rejecting that hand, and when he'd felt it fall away he told himself it was a good thing. And what's more, he'd felt it. Relief. Because he couldn't do this now. He couldn't do this at all.

Now, pulling up the information for Estelle Cole, he sends it with a press of a few keys to Jack's computer. He doesn't want to go back up there. Can't face him again yet. It's four thirty now and he has three hours to do what he needs to do in the central Hub before Tosh gets here. He doesn't want to be working around them while they're here, not today. He needs time, time to get used to being here again, a day's grace where his return can be talked of without him having to witness it. Tomorrow will be easier again. They'll have forgotten him again by then.

So he starts with the cleaning, because it's the most obvious. It's shockingly neat, however, only a stray littering of paper coffee cups, a few used mugs, a jar of instant coffee in the kitchen that he tosses in the bin without a second thought. By the sofa there's a pizza box with one slice left congealing inside, but apart from that there isn't much. Even the floors are mostly clean, though he runs the vacuum under the work stations for stray crumbs.

It barely takes half an hour to do it all and he saves climbing up to Myfanwy's nest for last. She's still out for the night so there's no danger of having his head snapped off in a fit of temper. But her nest is nearly immaculate and—he squints—a teddy bear? He wonders who put it there. It could have been any of them but his mind goes first to Owen, just because it amuses him.

After that, he does his supply rounds. Finds the stationary cupboard nearly depleted and makes a list. Goes down to the medical bay where he does a check to cross examine Owen's own report, which always ends up being padded. Not that Jack seems to mind, but Ianto likes to keep track of just how much is being slipped in under the radar. Owen's eBay habits have a tendency to get out of hand if an eye isn't kept on him. Next is the kitchen where he makes yet another list for groceries.

By then it's after six, so with painstaking care he begins to dismantle the coffee machine. It hadn't been broken, fortunately for Jack's coffee habits, but Ianto wants to make sure. Wants to inspect each piece like an artefact in its own right. When it's taken apart, he cleans it, then just as lovingly he puts it all back together again and by then it's nearly seven and he's almost done.

He does a last sweep, collecting files from outboxes and gathering all the artefacts left strewn about where whichever member of the team had it last. There's surprisingly few of them and he manages them all in a single trip, bringing them back down to the archives where he's finally met with the wall of disaster he's been waiting for.

What looks like half the archive has been pulled out and is sitting on or around the large desk he'd set up in the anteroom for this very purpose. Alien objects spill out onto the floor, out of the room and into the corridor where they're neatly up along the wall like a collection of school children waiting to go on break. He closes his eyes. Sighs. Wonders if this is worth it. But his fingers are already itching to get started, to finish. He knows it's going to be a long day, a long night. Knows he won't be leaving here until it's at least organised and broken down. He sees a Caliphon Data Sphere lying beside a Raxacoricofallapatorian DNA Duplicator and with a roll of his eyes moves them further apart.

He glances at his watch. Seven sixteen. He leaves the artefacts he's collected and drops the files off where he doesn't dare look in the drawers yet. Even before he'd left Gwen had had a blithe disregard for basic alphabetisation. He's afraid to see what four weeks has wrought.

Then, with a steadying breath, he heads for the cog door and the corridors beyond. He takes the lift up to ground level and walks the tunnel to the tourist office with bated breath. Has nightmare visions of Tosh appearing before he's made it, of actually having to run into her in this narrow space where eye contact would be even more conspicuous for its absence.

But he's on time. By seven twenty-eight he is at the tourist counter. He unlocks the door and flips the sign to  _Open._ He looks for something to do with his hands but there's nothing, not even dust. He wonders who on earth had been up here dusting but can't even begin to imagine. Even the recycling box has been emptied, the trash bin relined. He shuffles some pamphlets around for something to do.

Seven thirty-six.

Remembers that seven thirty is only a rough estimate and wonders how long he'll have to wait. If she'll even be on time. What if she's late today? What if he ends up sitting here for another hour waiting for her to arrive, his breath getting shorter with every minute that passes, his chest getting tighter and tighter. He begins to feel light-headed and wonders if he's going to have another panic attack. He counts in his head, forces himself to calm down by sheer effort of will. This is ridiculous. He can't believe how ridiculous he's being. He imagines Tosh walking in to find him hyperventilating on the floor in a ball and the horror of that thought does more to bring him back down than anything else.

Seven thirty-nine.

He reaches over to the computer terminal and starts fiddling around with the tourist information site just for something to do. He reads the enthusiastic recommendation of Cardiff Castle and mentally rewrites it in his head. He's moved on to the Millenium Centre when the door opens.

Seven forty-seven.

He glues his eyes to the screen. Presses keys on the keyboard at random.  _I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy._ Tries to project it with everything that's in him but she walks towards him. Actually walks to the counter and stops in front of him and over the sound of his random key pressing he hears the shuffle of cardboard and a cup of coffee is placed on the desk in front of him.

He stares at it. Can't help it. His fingers are still typing away but he's not even looking at the monitor anymore.

“Got you a coffee,” says Tosh, soft and sweet.

He tries to smile, can feel the automatic muscle movement but he can't look at her. “Right,” he says, staring at this thing on his desk, utterly foreign in its context, and has to look away because the risk that he might look at her is too great.

“Nobody ever gets you a coffee,” she says, undeterred, and he can hear the compassion in her voice. It's so close to undoing him in a way even Jack never managed to do and when she turns away he's filled with an unbearable gratitude for her departure. Except that she doesn't go. Hesitates. Turns back.

“Doing anything nice for the weekend?” she asks and  _no,_ he can't. He can't do this. 

He gets up abruptly, hits the bioscanner to open the hidden door. Still can't look at her but he's aware of her staring at him, aware of her humiliation at this abrupt dismissal and he keeps his voice light, “Go on through,” hoping that if he doesn't sound upset it will somehow fix this, make it better. But it is a dismissal, can't be anything but.

He sits back down at the computer. Stares at the screen as if it's staring back, as if his life depends on the clumsy words on the screen. He listens to her footsteps moving away, hears them stop one last time and knows he's being watched and he strains, frozen with his eyes facing front, unable to move if he wanted to. And finally, finally as he hears her walk away, as that concerned gaze finally retreats, he looks up. Watches her go. And absurdly, insanely, he wants to call her back.  _Thank you. No plans. How are you? Any new projects?_ But she's gone and he doesn't think he could have done it anyway.

He looks at the coffee on his desk. Puts his hand around it and feels the heat bleed through. It's from Costa but he doesn't care. He takes a long swallow and finds it's a latte but it could be a skim milk caramel mocha from Starbucks and he would still drink it because this is the first time anyone's brought him coffee since Lisa died. The first time a member of the team looked up and actually saw him. And he knew it would be Tosh, the other invisible one. But he hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected a coffee. Hadn't expected to actually want her to stay, even for a fleeting moment. He realises that this was the reason she was late. Because she had gone to Costa and stood in line and waited to buy a coffee, one of which was for him.

He wonders that this fact should strike him as so extraordinary.

He stays in the tourist office and drinks his coffee. He wonders how long he can stay up here before he's actually needed downstairs and with a guilty conscience he pulls up the Torchwood mainframe and the digital files, going through the entire backlog of when he'd been gone, organising and renaming files and folders as he goes, fixing typos and spelling mistakes as he goes.

At eight thirty-five when Gwen comes in he's actually legitimately working. He glances up at her entrance but doesn't offer her a greeting. Opens the door for her without a word or a look. She stops, though, and he can feel her gaze and he can almost feel the drag of her attention, willing him to look up and for a brief instant he does it, flickering his eyes upwards if only to confirm his suspicions. And there she is. Staring at him, and it's exactly what he expected, pity and condescension and her face, always so clear, is practically shouting at him to trust her, to talk to her. But he doesn't. He doesn't even like her right now.

“Tosh brought coffee,” he says by way of dismissal and he hears her audible sigh, like a teacher whose student has disappointed her, and listens with relief to her footsteps disappearing.

When Owen comes in at nine ten neither of them even try to acknowledge the other. Ianto stays seated and without breaking off the tuneless whistle hissing between his teeth, Owen opens the door to the secret entrance himself and disappears and it's exactly as Ianto expected would happen and the second it shuts behind him Ianto can feel himself relax. The worst is over and he's hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion.

_“Ianto.”_

Ianto jumps. It's Jack's voice, crackling over the comm. He debates ignoring it but remembers belatedly that there's a CCTV camera and Jack is probably watching him right now.

“Yeah,” he replies.

_“I need you to book two tickets to that fairy thing.”_

“Sorry?”

_“The Estelle Cole talk. I'm just doing what you asked and skipping over the bit where we pretend you're an idiot.”_

And of course Ianto knows what Jack is talking about. As soon as he'd been asked to look her up he'd done a basic internet search and pulled up the information on her talk. He'd also filed away her name for a more thorough search in their own files, just in case. It hadn't been lost on him that she shared a name with Jack's boat.

“Right, will do,” he says.

_“Wonderful. Also, any chance of another coffee?”_

That familiar plea. And Ianto's never been able to say no to Jack.

“Coming right up,” he says, and locks the door to the tourist centre.  _Day one,_ he thinks.  _The worst is over._

It's not, of course. This is Torchwood after all.

 


	55. Monday Afternoon - Jack

There are times when Jack thinks he spends his entire life afraid. Afraid of losing people, of loving them, of not loving them enough, of dying, and—hugely, overwhelmingly—afraid of not dying. And at the bottom of each separate fear, buried deep and nameless, is the fear of failing. The fear of simply not being good enough.

It's why people like Gwen Cooper are so intoxicating. That way they have of looking at him like he's something better, that no matter what he will always do what's right, that he will always have the answer. Even when she's in the process of flouting his every order _,_ behind it all is the surety that in the end he will come through. He will  _always come through._

He can't, of course. He spends his life scrambling at the precipices he finds himself on, each minute that he continues to keep himself alive a small miracle in itself. He wonders sometimes if the universe is laughing at him, watching him fall over and over again only to bring him back to fall again. He hates it. And yet still, he throws himself at each new death like this will be the last time, this time the trick expires, this time... _this time..._

It hasn't worked yet. But he's changing, even he can see that. A wrinkle here, a grey hair there, and he can feel himself growing tired. He wants a rest, but even sleep has been largely taken from him. He remembers two weeks ago, being with Ianto and actually  _sleeping,_ a glorious dreamless place he hardly remembered existed, and he feels a pang that's strong enough to cross his face and beside him Gwen gives him a quizzical look. He camouflages it with a smirk.

“What exactly are we doing here?” she asks.

“An invitation from an old friend,” he says facetiously, the easy lie coming instinctively. But he's not entirely convinced of what's happening yet and he wants desperately to still be wrong. A stray rose petal, weird weather patterns. They could be anything. They could be nothing.

They reach the hall and Gwen looks at the poster and then looks at him and he smirks again.

“Fairies. Are you kidding me?” she demands and he doesn't answer, just raises his eyebrows and leads the way inside.

The old hall is dark and mostly quiet. Only the echo of a voice reaches the lobby, muffled by closed doors but still familiar, and when Jack leads them through to the dimly lit auditorium, he looks up to find Estelle's smile already on him. He waves to her and he can't keep the grin off his face.

“I suppose I'm one of the fortunate few who's been allowed to see our little friends,” Estelle is saying. “And it's been no easy task. One needs to have the patience of a saint and the blind faith of a prophet.”

Jack and Gwen sit, sliding into the back row. There is only a scattering of people spread out across the chairs in the darkened room and Gwen immediately slumps back into hers, her protest at their presence here clear. But Jack doesn't care. He is sitting forward, his eyes on Estelle.

She's aged again since he last saw her, in tiny inexplicable ways, but he can see the wear around her eyes, the way gravity seems to weigh less heavily on her than on her surroundings, too light, too ephemeral, any day she could float away from him entirely.

There is a suppressed excitement in her words, hidden in the half sheepish self-deprecation he recognises so well, and he loves that about her, her ability to laugh at herself. He glances at Gwen, who is clearly trying not to roll her eyes. “For me the long wait has been worthwhile,” Estelle is saying and the slide clicks over and Jack focusses on the new picture before them.

It's a stone circle at night, blurred but recognisable, everything either completely in shadow or washed out by the flash, and around it, floating in the air, perched in trees, are bright points of indistinguishable lights. They could be anything. They could be nothing. But he can't be sure.

“This is my first picture,” Estelle says. “Not that clear, I know, but the ring of stones can be seen quite distinctly.”

“I don't believe this,” Gwen mutters, and Jack shushes her without even looking. Estelle changes the slide again and he thinks he sees it. The suggestion of wings. Or maybe just a blur on the lens.

“Well of course I'm not the world's best photographer, but this little person is just about visible.”

She is definitely laughing at herself, but there's the eagerness too, the earnest belief that what she is saying is true and Jack knows that Estelle doesn't lie, but he also knows that the human mind was made to play tricks on itself. It could be. But it might not.

_Please, let it be not._

“I was so lucky to have seen them. So privileged to witness such a magical moment. Because fairies are shy, you see!”

Gwen snorts.

“But I know in my heart that they're friendly, loving creatures.”

Jack shakes his head. “Wrong,” and he feels Gwen's gaze move to him but he ignores her, is focussed on Estelle, on the blurred photo of the supposed fairy on the screen.

Then Estelle smiles one last time and the projector switches off. There is polite applause and Jack sits back in his seat, watching as the audience begins to shuffle towards the exit.

“Wrong,” he says out loud. “She always gets it wrong.”

As the door swings shut behind the last of the audience, Jack rises and Estelle is already there, coming towards him up the aisle, and whatever is happening, whatever their disagreements, this is Estelle, and he goes to her, sweeps her up in a hug that encompasses her slim and wasted frame far too easily and she laughs softly against his chest, small hands clinging to his coat.

“Jack,” she says, just his name, and he grins down and presses a kiss into her white hair.

“Estelle. Good to see you.”

“How wonderful that you came.

He lets her go as she steps back, a curious look at Gwen behind him that reminds him of his manners. “Estelle Cole, this is Gwen Cooper.” Gwen smiles tightly at Estelle, who beams at her.

“You want to see the photos?” she asks. “I don't know what they can tell you, they're not very good. I brought the best ones with me.”

She's right, they're not very good, but as Jack flips through them Estelle stands at his side looking over his shoulder, and he can smell her. Iron and sunlight and the slow decay of the human body as it starts to fall apart. Gwen is sitting sideways in a chair nearby, her fingers flickering over her watch.

“When did you take these?” Jack asks.

“A couple of nights ago,” Estelle says.

“Where?”

“In Roundstone Wood.”

“Not far from here,” Gwen interjects and Jack glances back at her. She's smiling, but it's cool and the expression is vaguely smug, as though there's a joke she's in on and Estelle is on the outside: the joke. He turns away from here and there is Estelle and she is smiling too, but there is nothing cool in the expression. It is the settled warmth of a contented soul and he finds himself smiling back without even meaning to.

“So good to see you again, Jack,” she says and it's like a secret between them and he has to resist the urge to reach for her and hold her, pull her to him and feel the fervency of her touch. Even now, maybe even more than before, with gravity losing its hold on her, she seems to be made of light.

Estelle hands him another photo. “Oh look, there's the wood!” and she sounds so delighted with it that he sighs, frustrated.

“What's wrong?” Gwen asks.

“Oh, Jack and I have always disagreed about fairies,” Estelle answers. “I only see the good ones. He only ever sees the bad.”

“They're  _all_ bad,” he says, the argument an old one that will probably never be settled.

“No, I refuse to believe that!”

“Well I suppose one person's good could be somebody else's evil,” Gwen suggests.

Estelle's expression, always light, softens. “That's what his father used to say,” and Jack can feel her eyes on him, watching him closely, and then like a spell being broken she is back on that old subject, eager and excited. “Oh, Jack! If only you had seen them there in the wood. They were happy. They were dancing! The fairy lights were shining!”

“Do you have any more photos?” he asks, cutting her off impatiently. They both look at each other in amused comprehension and he breathes out a laugh, at this woman, at the two of them together.

“Yes, at home,” she says.

“Right. I need to see them all.”

 

* * * * *

 

He follows her ancient blue Fiat in the SUV and at his side Gwen is sullen and quiet. He wonders if bringing her had been a mistake, but they're all a little tense today and he'd been watching on the CCTV this morning when Ianto, without a qualm, had dismissed her efforts at conciliation.

He'd seen the confusion and the humiliation on her face when she'd left him, that blank look in her eye as she'd retreated down the tunnel. Ianto had all but slapped her in the face in that encounter. It was part of the reason he'd brought her with him today, because he recognised her mortification and the sullen perversity that was a symptom of it and he'd wanted to alleviate it.

He'd also recognised in her and Ianto's encounter something he hadn't realised before: Ianto doesn't like Gwen. The encounter between them hadn't been the slightly desperate awkwardness that had been evident when Tosh had come in. It was also more than the mutual contempt that Ianto and Owen shared. It was a genuine, active, reasoned dislike, and it puzzled Jack.

He tries to think back over the last few weeks since Gwen had come aboard, but no particular incident comes to mind. He wonders if the feeling is inspired by jealousy, but jealously of what? Of Jack's affections? Jack's support? Her place in the team? It could be any of those things, or all of them. Or  _none_ of them. He doesn't know. It worries him that he doesn't know.

They park on the street and walk the half block to where Estelle is clumsily unloading the projector from her car. Gwen takes it with a tight smile and Estelle beams at her but it's Jack who returns the look as he gathers the heaviest items and they all troop together to the house.

Moses, the black and white cat that had adopted Estelle four year ago, mutters at them from his place on the sofa but he doesn't bother to get up. He knows Jack and doesn't care about Gwen.

They settle the various items where Estelle directs and while Estelle introduces Gwen to Moses, Jack shuffles again through the box he was carrying, flickering through the pictures, looking for something he'd missed, something revealed in a different light, a blurred line suddenly made clear. But there's nothing.

Estelle appears, a file folder in her hand. “They're mostly just pictures of the area,” she says, handing it to him and he sees that she's right. He flips through photos of stones and trees and as he does so he's aware of Gwen moving about behind him. Estelle is gone, taking Moses with her to the garden, and too late he remembers the photograph of him on the mantle.

“This is you,” Gwen says, and it's not a question.

He takes the picture she holds out and stares at his own face looking back at him. “Sorry, no. That's my dad,” he says and he smiles fondly at the old photo. He looks tired in it, beaten, but they all had during those times. It had been the second time around and no one had been fooled by the tales of glory. Still. It needed to be done. Someone needed to do it. It was more than politics this time, the atrocities too great on both sides.

That was one thing he missed about races like the Daleks and the Cybermen. There was never any doubt, standing on that Game Station with the Doctor and Rose. There was never any doubt about who was good, who was bad. Enemies like that made it so simple.

But here, he had seen the prison camp in Wales during the Great War, the German soldiers who'd been conscripted just like them, the farmers and the labourers and the miners. And a few years later, a different war entirely, the Irish, starved and abused and desperate.

Even during World War II with its more obvious lines of good and evil, there were times when it all became so blurred, when even after the atrocities of the camps, when what remained of the Jewish and the Romani were released, hollow-eyed and broken, there were still the men with the pink triangles, re-interred by the allies because certain laws wouldn't be overturned for decades yet, in some places hadn't been overturned even now. He remembers his own doubt, his own fears, still feels them to this day. Not that the Third Reich didn't need defeating, but that though Good had prevailed it had turned out that the good could be just as capable of evil as the ones he'd given up lives defeating.

He hates the Daleks. He  _hates_ the Cybermen. But there is something undoubtedly comforting in knowing that one is, without question, in the right.

Looking at his own face, too serious, too tired, he remembers when it was published, after the U-Boat had sunk the SS Arandora Star en route to Canada with thirteen hundred internees and POWs on board. He remembers a German internee named Otto, his seaman's voice booming over the screams and the explosions and the ocean creeping up their sides to swallow them all whole. Jack had been with him at the end, the two of them hitting the water together. He remembers Otto's face, his mouth and eyes wide with the shock of the cold before the pull of the craft had dragged them both under without a sound.

Jack remembers drowning. The cold ocean in the cold dawn, the sky slipping away as the bow raised itself into the air and slid with a terrible silence into the dark.

It had hurt, drowning. The salt water stung going down.

He had woken up on a beach in Ireland, surrounded by a dozen bloated dead. He'd retched, then retched some more, and finally had crawled away before he could be found. He'd found his photo in the papers among the list of the dead and the first thing he'd done was write Estelle. The second thing he'd done was report for duty.

Staring at his own face again he remembers it all, can hear Otto's deep voice shouting over the hysterical screams of the Italians, a voice accustomed to being heard over hurricanes.

He becomes aware of Gwen looking at him quizzically and he blinks, clearing away the last memory of Otto's face and takes the photo from her. “He and Estelle were quite the item once upon a time,” he says. “They were inseparable.”

And Gwen, so simple, so sweet: “Then why did they part?”

“It was wartime,” he says, as if that's enough, and it is but not for someone who hadn't been there. “He was posted abroad, she volunteered to work on the land. Just happened that way.”

He sees another photo, him and Estelle standing together in a field tucked in behind the frames. He picks it up, can't look at it too closely. He hands it to Gwen, as much to get it out of his hand as to show her he's not afraid of her seeing it, but he can feel her eyes on him and he's relieved when she finally gets up and leaves the room, following Estelle out into the garden.

He takes a minute to finish going through the photos. He know there's nothing useful in them but he needs a second to collect himself, to remember where he is, and only when the last echoes of Otto's voice fades back to its proper place does he go after Gwen and he hears her and Estelle in the garden and wonders if it was perhaps a bad idea to leave them together alone.

“He'll be in his early nineties now,” Estelle is saying and Jack can just see her around the edge of the greenery, eyes distant as she plays with a stalk of grass.

“You could always ask Jack about him,” Gwen says.

“I have!” Estelle's eyes focus back to where Gwen is standing and a second later, flicker past. “But he doesn't seem to want to talk about his father.” And Jack knows he's been seen.

He steps out. “Estelle,” he calls and he sees the guilty tension in Gwen's back before he even sees her face. “When you next see these creatures you call us immediately, understand?” He glances at Gwen as he goes past her and sure enough her lips are pursed, her eyes too wide.

Estelle hums her understanding and he stops beside her, touches her shoulder. Wishes he could touch more.

“Night or day,” he tells her. “It doesn't matter, just call us,” and she is looking up at him, fond and mischievous and _good_ and he slides his arm around her, rubs her back, his fingers splayed out as if the sheer area they can cover will make a difference, will let him soak up more of her presence. She is looking at him and he knows that look. Remembers it from more than half a century ago and he wonders, not for the first time, just how much she knows. “And be careful. It's important to me.”

“But Jack,” she says, “I've nothing to worry about.”

“Just be careful. Please.”

And Estelle laughs, a soft familiar sound and Jack pulls her in, holds her to him one-armed and she presses in like she belongs there, like she knows she belongs there. He presses a kiss to the top of her white head, the most natural thing in the world.

 

* * * * *

 

“Estelle shouldn't be living in town,” he says as he and Gwen leave the house. “She belongs in the countryside.”

“How often do you get to see her?” Gwen says.

“We meet up now and again.”

“Whenever she's seen her fairies?” Gwen asks and it's clearly mocking, youth amused by the delusions of the old, and something in Jack has had enough. He remembers sitting her down four weeks ago in his office, telling her about Canary Wharf, about Ianto, and he thinks that sometimes perhaps she needs this, to be frightened a little bit in order to understand.

“She calls them fairies,” he says. “I don't.”

“What do you call them?”

“They never had a proper name.”

“Why not?”

Why not? The question is absurd and so utterly human. Everything named and labelled and neatly put away. Names have power, if only the power to contain, to create something to hold on to amidst the chaos. “Something from the dawn of time. How could you possibly put a name to that?”

“Are we talking alien?” she asks, still looking sceptical, and he recognises this instinctive need to make it  _other,_ to divorce humanity from the atrocious, and he wishes he could tell her the things he's seen humans do, the things he's done, but he knows he'll never do that to either of them.

“Worse,” is all he says, though he knows she won't believe him. Not yet, maybe not ever.

“How come?”

“Because they're part of us, part of our world, yet we know nothing about them. So we pretend we know what they look like. We see them as happy. We imagine they have tiny little wings and are bathed in moonlight.” This time he's the one who's mocking but he's irritated by this case, by everything about this, and he's scared.

“But they're not?” Gwen asks.

“No. Think dangerous. Think something you can only half see, like a glimpse, like something out of the corner of your eye with a touch of myth, a touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, all jumbled together. Old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it. Like debris spinning about a ringed planet, tossing, turning, whirling.” He knows he's being dramatic but he doesn't have the language for these things, he doesn't know how to explain the inexplicable. “Then backwards and forwards through time,” he says. “If that's them we have to find them. Before all hell breaks loose.”

And he hopes he's wrong. He hopes. But Gwen is looking at him like she half believes him now, or at least believes he's lost his mind, though perhaps those things aren't mutually exclusive.

 


	56. Monday Afternoon - Ianto and Jack

Ianto tries not to mind when Jack takes Gwen with him, but he had gotten used to it being him and Jack. He'd almost forgotten, those four weeks away, that any of the others existed at all. But they do and once more he has to remember to make room for them in his life, in his routine, a routine he has to build up from its very foundations because even that's been taken from him.

It's a relief, but difficult nonetheless.

When Jack disappears with Gwen out the door he is torn between wishing he'd been asked and thankful he hadn't been because he doesn't know what his answer would have been. He doesn't _want_ to be out there. His thrill is here, with the information, the reams of knowledge, the endless history that he alone has found the way to navigate. This is his world and he loves it. But not so long ago Lisa had been that world, too. And an even shorter time before, Jack, nudging his way in past all of Ianto's defences, taking precedence like Lisa had before him, and all Ianto wants right now is the soothing flow of information, the comfort of knowing things, the thrill of discovering something new.

He knows he's not the first to know these particular things. But every piece of information he collects is one more piece that someone else hadn't. And the more pieces he has, the more likely it is that he is the first to have them all together. He cradles them in the secure files of his mind, sectioned and organised and boxed away, ready to be taken down and put together as needed, the first to see where each piece fits together to make up a grander whole. He is constructing it with extreme care, slotting all the information into his view of the universe in order to create The View, a truth that stops being subjective and simply becomes Fact. Every piece goes towards that. Every piece brings him a little bit closer.

So he watches Jack and Gwen with a pang that is only half regretful and that half he pushes away, shoving it under a pile of something else in a darker corner of his mind.

He finds also that it's easier with Gwen and Jack gone. Owen is in the medical bay and Tosh is absorbed by her monitor. He feels safe here in a way he hasn't before. There are no secrets any more, no reason for him to be afraid, and so he tries to get used to not being so. It's a strange feeling but a good one.

He spends the morning with the paper archives. They're enormous, housed in three separate rooms on the second level. Dehumidifiers work full time in these spaces, filtering the damp from the air, but they're a relatively modern addition, more than eighty percent of it still needing to be scanned into the digital archive, and the damage of years of neglect and moisture have wrought their mischief on the older files making some of them almost impossible to decipher. They are entirely disorganised, each new generation of archivist filing new additions according to their own system. There are hints of attempts made at a greater overhaul, but the truth of the matter is is that it's an enormous job and the damage it encompasses is that of decades upon decades.

However, Ianto doesn't mind. It's an intensely satisfying job, bringing it all to order. And helpfully, it's where he's found the most evidence of Jack's past. He'd known some of it, of course. It's impossible to work through Torchwood's past without running into some reference to the man. Much like Torchwood is Cardiff's worst held secret, Jack is Torchwood's.

It's obvious that some attempt has gone into eliminating all references to Jack in the archives. The digital files have been edited and patched, often without any attempt to cover the traces of it. But the paper files have been more difficult. All files cross referenced with “Jack” “Harkness” or “Captain” have been heavily redacted or vanished altogether, a gaping hole in related cases that is impossible to miss.

But there are traces still, where filing hadn't been done properly, where cases hadn't been cross referenced as they should have been. And besides, Ianto had heard the gossip. It was believed at Torchwood One that Jack's immortality came from the Rift itself, and Ianto, in the first few panicked weeks of his start at Torchwood Three had found several references to a J Harkness in local archived newspapers from the 1870s that had nothing to do with Torchwood at all. Several of them were reports of arrests for unruly behaviour that acted as fodder for complaints about the misbehaviour of military personnel while on leave. Another was a missing person's report filed in 1899, followed up a week later by a report of Jack's return. The earliest Torchwood related file that Ianto had found is dated June 3rd, 1900, and was a confidential personnel file in which it was detailed how 'the agent Jack Harkness continues recalcitrant in the matter of mandatory alien execution.'

Ianto isn't an idiot. He dutifully files everything where it's meant to go, but not before redacting any and all mention of Jack Harkness in them. Not out of loyalty to Jack, at least not at first. But because this way he had sole proprietorship over the information. The last man in the world to be witness to these particular events in Jack's long history.

He has an entire secret file of them now, the unredacted copies, everything he's been able to find to date. He wonders if he'll ever present Jack with this collected evidence, but he doubts it and anyway it's not why he has them. He doesn't want to use the information. He just wants to  _have_ it. A secret, something certain to hang onto among all the uncertainties that make up Jack Harkness. It's dangerous having it, dangerous for Jack, dangerous for him if Jack ever finds out.  _But..._

As he plucks out another file—a case involving an ancient Tatooine android that had shown up in a farmer's field in 1917, a case where Jack is just a name, nothing more than a brief mention in the later consultation of what would be done with the thing—and as he scans it onto his flash drive, Ianto wonders why Jack, who is otherwise mostly intelligent, thinks he's fooled any of them. The number of injuries alone that he's picked up over the years had to have been noticed by the people whose job it is to go out into the field with him, never mind Owen the team medic.

But in spite of this, none of the team talk about it. At least, not with Ianto. Ianto still remembers the first time Jack had come back with a bullet hole through his coat and his shirt soaked in blood, and he remembers the way both Owen and Suzie had glared at Ianto, a silent message in the intensity of their stares. He'd have known without their cues not to say anything. But what seemed stranger was the fact that neither of them tried to excuse it later on. They'd all gone on with their work as if that bullet hole, as if that glare, hadn't happened at all. And Ianto, carefully mending that telltale hole later that night while Lisa's life support had hummed around him, had wondered at that more than anything else.

At one o'clock Jack and Gwen return and Tosh has prepared a file of evidenced and reported fairy sightings. The key item is the Cottingley Glass-Plate Photos.

Jack, his voice crackling over the comm, asks Ianto to serve coffee in the conference room and Ianto reluctantly does. He's not sure he's ready to face them all yet, not as a group, but only Tosh acknowledges him when he arrives, his arms weighted down by the heavy tray. Owen is bored and looks it and Gwen is brooding.

Jack's in a tetchy mood, his normal light-hearted sarcasm coming out more snappy than intended. He shuts down Ianto's own attempt at a quip and Ianto takes a second to look at him, wondering if it's the situation between them that's done this or something else. When Jack responds to Gwen in the same manner, however, he realises this has nothing to do with him. It's the case, and Jack is spooked.

When Jack leaves again, this time with both Gwen and Owen on his tail, Ianto disappears back into the files and after several futile attempts comes up with Estelle Cole's name in brief reference as use as possible leverage against freelance agent Harkness during the Second World War when Jack had disappeared to take part in the conflict. The file promises a more complete report on the matter but Ianto finds no trace of that report and he's glad. Still, he dutifully copies it before redacting the original and refiling it.

He tries looking up 'fairies' but gets nothing. He goes down the line from there.  _Faeries. Faery. Fae Folk. Little People. Little Folk. Fay._ He exhausts his knowledge of both Welsh and Irish folklore and at the end of an hour he is left frustrated and ruffled, sitting in front of the monitor in the paper archives and still in the same place as he was before.

He branches out his searches to encompass abnormal weather patterns, but everything that comes up is cross referenced to some archived device or alien species and none of them seem even remotely similar to what Jack was talking about, to what Ianto had seen on the weather monitor that morning.

Fairies.

Ianto remembers Jack's frustration, the terseness of his answers when the team responded with quips and disbelief. Ianto hasn't often seen Jack so obviously afraid, but when he has it is often like this, the tense irritation and barely controlled impatience, and it almost always results in a visit to the Packet after everyone else has gone home.

Involuntarily, Ianto's mind goes back to that moment when Jack had held a gun to his head, when he'd first realised that he'd been betrayed. There had been fear then, too, but it had been nothing to the rage that had accompanied it.

Ianto shivers in the dimness of the archive room, the glow of the monitor turning everything blue. He wonders at the sorts of things that can frighten the man who won't stay dead.

 

* * * * *

 

In the conference room, under the ministrations of Ianto's coffee and the fading memories of Estelle's last embrace, Jack is only barely paying attention. Tosh's presentation is singularly useless, but there's not much to go on outside of books of folklore and Yeats. The Cottingley Glass-Plates are the only thing remotely attached to factual evidence on record and Jack is hardly even listening.

Only when Ianto speaks, a quip about magic mushrooms does he sit up and force his attention back into the room.

“What you do in your own time is none of our business,” Jack returns and he tries for light and teasing but he can tell from Ianto's face that he didn't quite hit it. It's not hurt, but it's questioning, and Jack realises with a start that he's become incredibly adept at reading the different degrees of blankness on Ianto's face. He is expressionless but there's an intensity to it and Jack can almost hear the words:  _I know something's wrong._

Jack looks away before Ianto can see the expression in his own eyes.

Gwen is talking for the first time since they arrived back. Ianto is passing coffee around and there is an easy banter going on between them all and for a second everything is normal. Everyone is safe and here and for brief moments he can keep them like that. No one is looking at Ianto as if he's something broken or wrong. It's only been half a day but like any group of people who's lives are too contained, all it takes is the next big thing to make them forget the previous one. The introduction of fairies into their working lexicon seems to have done the trick.

He takes Owen and Gwen with him to Roundstone Wood and the stone circle is everything he expected. A clearing under a crooked old tree, half a dozen stones half buried in the soil. He's known enough Irishmen and Welshmen to know not to go into them, but neither Gwen nor Owen seem bothered by them and Jack stops just short and watches them step inside.

“You know this whole area was forest in primeval times,” Owen is saying. “Most of the development areas have been built on ley lines.”

Jack takes a minute to appreciate Owen Harper talking about primeval forests and ley lines as he checks his wrist strap.

“Anyone could have made this circle!” Gwen exclaims. She paces in the centre of the stones, her hands flung into the air in frustration.

“Why do you keep doubting me?” Jack demands. “I spell out the dangers, you keep looking for explanations.”

“That's what police work's all about,” she says like he's simple, like he's missed some vital step along the way.

“This isn't police work,” he says, annoyed by both her tone and her words and he can't believe that after everything she's seen at Torchwood, after everything he's told her, they're still having this conversation.

“Alright then,” she concedes, “Science,” as if somehow that will settle everything, make it all untrue.

“And it's not science,” Jack bites out.

“I know,” she says, impatient herself now, her mocking cheer finally _finally_ going. “You told me. It's that corner-of-the-eye stuff,” and she looks derisive except that there's a noise then, like the sudden rush of leaves except that there isn't any wind, and like children's laughter, except that they're alone.

For a second they all look around, look up, as if they will see something, and Jack doesn't know if that would make it better or worse.

And then Owen clears his throat and they all look back at the ground.

“Let's get this done, yeah?” he says and tries not to sound nervous though he straightens and moves out of the circle as he says it. Gwen, watching him, looks like she would like to do the same but she holds her place and she maintains a challenging silence until they finish.

It only takes five minutes. There is nothing. No unusual readings, nothing to tell them anything at all. But when they leave they are all walking just a little bit faster.

 


	57. Monday Afternoon - Ianto

By three o'clock they've returned to the Hub. Ianto is collecting files from Tosh when Owen strides up to her workstation, Temporal Fluxometer held out towards her.

“Anything?” Tosh asks, taking it from him.

Owen grunts. “I thought there was a blip but I dunno. Gwen was mouthing off at the time and there was a noise so I was a bit distracted.”

“A noise?” Ianto asks.

Owen sends a glare and after a short struggle with himself he pointedly directs the answer to Tosh, who is watching him with some bemusement. “Leaves rustling,” Owen says. “Kids laughing.”

There's a pause.

“Leaves rustling in a forest,” Tosh says flatly and Ianto is glad she's the one to say it.

This time Owen's glare is directed at both of them. “It wasn't like that! It was...creepy. Anyway, the blip happened around then.”

“Before or after Gwen was mouthing off?” Ianto asks and Owen doesn't even bother glaring at him this time, simply directs the answer to Tosh and Ianto almost wishes all their interactions could be like this.

“After. She was standing in the stone circle and yelling ' _I don't believe in fairies!'_ at the top of her lungs.”

“Actually?” Tosh looks like she isn't sure if she should be amused or aghast.

Owen grimaces. “Basically. Anyway, it was right after that. See if you can get something helpful out of it. And tell tea boy I'm hungry.” And on that parthian shot he turns and stalks away.

Tosh glances sideways, a silent question in them, and Ianto rolls his eyes. She grins at him and he's about to walk away when there's a pressure on his arm and he looks down and sees Tosh's hand on his sleeve.

“Hey,” she says. “You okay?”

And suddenly it's absurdly difficult to swallow. “Yeah,” he says, and pulls away but at the last second stops, turns back to her. She's watching him, eyes earnest and sympathetic. “Tosh,” he says, and takes a breath.

_“Lunch! Who wants lunch!”_

The voice, Jack's, is overloud and unbearably cheerful. Both Ianto and Tosh jump a little, startled, and when they glance back at each other there's something sheepish there and a sort of tacit understanding. Ianto can feel a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth and he sees an answering one on Tosh's.

“Hey, losers!” Jack calls and they look up to see him standing over them on the walkway, Gwen at his shoulder. “We're getting some food. What do you want?”

“Sushi?” says Tosh at the same time that Ianto says “Not sushi.”

For a second Jack's eyes flicker towards Ianto's and hold there, and then Jack is whirling away again, Gwen at his heels.

“Sushi it is, then!” he calls back.

Ianto finds Tosh's eyes on him again. He shrugs and rolls his eyes. “He's kidding,” he says. _Maybe._

He takes his file and leaves her, heading back to the paper archives and their soothing electric silences. Tomorrow he'll start on the artefact archive, the straightening of which will take at least the rest of the week if not longer. But he wants this day of rest first, the opportunity to reestablish himself in the currents of the Hub.

He is half way down the stairs to the second level when his phone starts to ring. _Jack,_ he thinks, and he can feel his heart already starting to speed up and is annoyed with himself for it. Except that when he fishes the mobile out of his pocket the number on it isn't Jack's at all but the mason for Flat Holm. He gives a low oaths and picks up.

“Hello, Madog.”

_“Ianto, where are you?”_

“At work.”

_“Ah! Ha ha ha! Top secret, wink wink nudge nudge! I won't tell anyone, don't worry.”_

Ianto presses his hand over his eyes. “Madog, I'm busy, what do you want?”

_“We're at the Quay.”_

“The Quay.”

_“Waiting for you.”_

“We're not meeting until Wednesday.”

There's a long silence.

_“Ah. Well, see, I thought it was today.”_

“Well it wasn't.”

Another pause.

_“Right. Well, see. I thought it was today and so I went and scheduled another job for the eighth. Nice cozy job in some nob's back yard, nice and sheltered like, see? And with the storm brewing for the end of the week and that island of yours being all exposed like...”_

Ianto sighs. “Yes, alright. I suppose I should be grateful you've remembered at all.”

_“No need to be snippy about it.”_

“There really is, Madog. Give me half an hour.”

 _“You're a gem, Ianto Jones,”_ and with a flourishing goodbye the line dies.

Ianto spends a second just to shut his eyes and call down a curse on whatever money-saving impulse had led him to hire Madog in the first place, but while Madog's schedule-keeping abilities didn't say much, the work he put forward was at least beyond question and his team's cheerful willingness to travel back and forth to a windswept island at the end of October was a valuable asset.

He hurries the rest of the way to the archives where he stacks the file he'd retrieved on its appropriate pile then shuts down the programme on the archive computer while he calls Helen. Grabbing his coat, he heads back upstairs and it's at the last minute that he realises he should probably let Jack know that he's left. He's upstairs and at Jack's office door before he remembers he'd gone with Gwen to get lunch.

For a second Ianto just stands there, peering into the empty office. Common sense says he could text Jack, or call him. In fact, he _should._ But he remembers that quick glance from the walkway and “ _Sushi it is, then!”_ and a rather petty impulse propels Ianto into the office to search for a piece of paper to leave a note instead. He pictures Jack returning with lunch for him (sushi or not) and finding him gone. It's a tiny, petty little thing, but it gives Ianto a tiny, petty bit of satisfaction, and he bites back a grin as he sits in Jack's chair and pulls out the drawer where the notepad is kept.

Except it's not there any more.

In fact, nothing is where it had been and Ianto stifles an exasperated oath as he pokes around inside Jack's desk feeling like an interloper, though he knows that Jack doesn't keep anything even remotely private or important unsecured in his desk drawers.

He's on the verge of giving it up for a lost cause and texting Jack after all when there's a sound from the doorway and he looks up to find Owen, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed and his eyebrows raised.

“Having a snoop while the boss is away?” Owen snaps.

Ianto considers ignoring him but he's running late now and aggravating Owen will just delay him even more.

“I'm looking for paper,” Ianto says. “I have to leave.”

“Leave?”

“Yes, leave.” He gives one last dig around in the bottom drawer he has open but there's nothing. Ianto isn't surprised. Not even Jack would be senseless enough keep note paper at the back of the bottom drawer of his desk. “Listen, I have to go,” he says standing up. “Tell Jack I'm meeting Madog, he'll know what I mean.”

“That's fucking fantastic, _I_ don't.”

Ianto blinks at him. “Right,” he says, and stands up. He doesn't look at Owen as he walks to the door, keeps his gaze focussed on the point just past his shoulder, though he knows that it won't work. There's too much tension today, too many things unsaid churning through the air ducts and Owen's always a bit loose in the haft even on the best of days.

And sure enough, when Ianto is three steps away, Owen straightens and steps out, blocking the door entirely and bringing himself that much closer to Ianto, who stops.

“Listen, tea boy. You think just cos the boss is out no one will notice you sneaking around where you don't belong. But I'm not a bloody idiot and you ain't shagging me so don't think you can get away with it while I'm around.”

Ianto doesn't even try to help it. He rolls his eyes.

“Right,” Owen says and he steps forward and Ianto watches like someone in a dream as Owen draws his fist back and for a second he thinks _I should dodge that,_ but it's too surreal. He can't believe he's about to let Owen punch him.

And then there's a step outside and Jack is there and there's the clatter of shoes and a quick oath spat out and Ianto feels himself stepping back into the world and he ducks even as Jack makes a grab for the fist that is swinging towards him.

“What the hell!” Jack yells. For a few seconds Owen struggles in his grasp before going still. He glares at Ianto from under hooded lids, his arms held firm in Jack's grip. For a second, Ianto meets Jack's gaze over the medic's heaving shoulder and then he is looking away again, stepping backwards and Jack releases his grip on Owen who stumbles and snarls before straightening and spinning with pent up rage towards the door only to have Jack block his way.

“What's going on here?” Jack demands.

“Ask tea boy why he was rifling through your desk.”

Again Jack's eyes find Ianto and despite the fact he was only looking for paper Ianto can feel himself flushing. “I was looking for paper,” he says, trying not to sound defensive.

Jack looks surprised. “Wooden box on the desk,” he says, then looks back at Owen who is glowering at them both. “Is that all?” Jack asks. “Ianto was looking for paper and you decided to hit him?”

“He bloody sassed me when I gave him a direct order!”

Jack looks puzzled by this and once more his gaze finds Ianto.

“I have to leave,” Ianto says.

“Okay,” Jack says. “Do you need a lift?”

“Oi!” Owen snarls and they both look at him. “How come he gets a day off? The wanker just got a month vacation for nearly killing us all and now you're just going to let him waltz off again cos he says so? D'you think if I gave you a quick BJ in the tunnels I could get the afternoon off, too?”

For a second it looks like Jack's going to respond. His jaw works in complicated silence and finally, when the pause has gone on just a heartbeat too long, he looks at Ianto again and when he repeats the question the underlying irritation is obvious. “Do you need a lift?”

And Ianto should say no. _Really. There's enough going on. They need you here, Jack._

“Sure,” he says, and wonders where that came from.


	58. Monday Afternoon - Jack

“You know you probably shouldn't have been going through my desk,” Jack says.

He is looking at the road ahead, navigating his way through the afternoon traffic, his hands gripped tightly to the wheel at precisely ten and two. He is trying to be casual but his entire body gives him away and he knows it. He feels Ianto's gaze on him and he makes a point of not looking over.

“I was going to write you a note,” Ianto finally says.

Outside, a bright yellow car swerves in front of them, cutting them off in their lane and Jack slams on the breaks, swearing.

“Yellow car,” Ianto murmurs, and Jack snorts.

“Why didn't you just text me?”

In the corner of his eye, Ianto shrugs. “In case you brought back sushi.”

For a second Jack tries to decipher that and when he does he isn't quite sure he believes it. Ianto doesn't stoop to petty. Or maybe he does. Jack doesn't know. “I grabbed something for you from that Italian place.”

There's a pause. “I don't suppose you brought it with you.”

Jack grins. “Nope. You'll have to come back for it.”

Silence falls as the traffic grinds to a halt. Jack sees Ianto glance at the clock.

“A cab wouldn't have been any faster,” Jack says wryly, but he can hear the defensiveness in his own voice and clenches his teeth on the words.

Ianto looks surprised. “I know.”

“Okay. Just in case you wanted to blame me for being late.”

There's a pause and then, “I don't blame you,” Ianto says carefully and they're not talking about the traffic any more. “If that's what you're trying to say.”

“No!” Jack says too quickly, but he's feeling weirdly nervous. There's been too much tension in this day, too much fear, too much uncertainty. He's been clinging to the edges, pulling them together, forcing the seams to align, but being alone with Ianto for the first time since this started he can feel everything begin to unravel, his grip beginning to loosen and the edges beginning to tear. He wants to stop the car, turn to the man beside him, and simply break down in his arms. Sob his heart out, hand it over, everything, the responsibility, the fear, put it in Ianto's hands and trust that it will turn out alright. And even if it doesn't, it's okay, because it won't have been his fault.

And Jack knows without asking that should he actually do that, Ianto would let him. Hold him and let him cry and do everything in his power to make this go away. But one of the things that stops Jack is the knowledge that Ianto has as good a chance against these creatures as he has, which is no chance at all. And Jack wishes he could do that to him. But he can't.

It would be so easy, just let it all slip from him, put it on someone else for once. Let someone else take the responsibility and the blame. Fifty years ago he would have. With another person he could have. But that's not who he is right now, in this life time, with this man, and though Ianto would accept it, whatever Jack put on him, Jack also knows that by doing so something would change. Something subtle and not entirely resolved yet. He's honest enough with himself to realise that as important to him as it is that Ianto not have to shoulder the responsibility for their inevitable failure, there is also the knowledge that Ianto would never look at him the same way again. And it's selfish, purely and unrepentantly selfish, and he knows himself well enough to know that of the two reasons, selfish and unselfish, the selfish one is the stronger.

And on the tail of that thought, inevitable and aching: _if only the Doctor were here..._

“So,” Ianto says, and Jack blinks. The traffic is beginning to move and he edges forward. “How bad is it?”

“The fairies?” Jack asks.

“Yeah.”

“Bad. There's nothing I can do.”

There's a pause. “Do you actually believe that?”

Jack snorts. “No. Still true though.”

“Do the others know?”

“Nope. And I'm not gonna tell them.”

“So what will you do?”

And there it is. The trust. The knowledge that Jack _will_ do something and the equal knowledge that even when it doesn't work Ianto will still look at him the same way.

“Whatever I need to. How's the move going?”

It takes a second for Ianto to catch up. “The move? You mean to the house?”

“Is there another move I should know about?”

“No. No it's just—it's fine. It's good. I was going to ask if I can miss tomorrow. All the furniture's arriving.”

“Oh.”

“But I can reschedule.”

“No, it's fine. Take the day. There's not much any of us can do anyway.”

“It's not a problem—”

“Seriously, Ianto. If the end of the world suddenly happens I'll call you. I expect you'll make up the time anyway,” he says wryly. “I've seen the archives.”

And startlingly, Ianto laughs. A pure sound of unadulterated amusement that has Jack turning to look at him. Ianto's face, always so carefully closed off, is suddenly open and Jack can't help but think about the last time he'd seen Ianto like this, sprawled on top of him in bed, every sorrow softened by joy. And abruptly he misses him and it's an effort not to reach over and take his hand.

“Do you know,” Ianto says. “I found the Caliphon Data Sphere sitting about three inches away from the Raxacoricofallapatorian DNA Duplicator?”

“Oh my god,” Jack groans and Ianto laughs even harder. “That would have been Owen.”

“Of course it was,” Ianto says and nods at the road. “Traffic's moving.”

 

* * * * *

 

It's three forty-eight by the time they pull into the lot at the quay and Ianto is surprisingly calm. Jack would have expected him to be leaping out of the car, or at least restlessly fidgeting. But instead Ianto just sits there. They can see the white truck with Madog's name printed on the side and four men idling in the parking lot nearby.

“You know,” Jack says when Ianto still doesn't move, “You could just hire new masons.”

“They do good work,” Ianto says simply and Jack doesn't press it.

They are quiet, only the engine of the SUV humming softly around them until Jack quiets that as well, turning the key in the ignition and the sudden silence is heavy between them.

“Jack,” Ianto says with abrupt determination and turns his whole body to face him and Jack can feel his breath stop in his chest. “Jack, it's not—”

And that's when the phone rings and he can see the frustrated amusement on Ianto's face even as he feels it on his own.

“Take it,” Ianto says. “It's important.”

“This isn't done,” Jack says intently and picks up his mobile. Gwen is talking almost before he has it at his ear and he listens while beside him Ianto hesitates before a hand reaches over and squeezes Jack's knee. A gesture of reassurance, of assent, and Jack snatches at it just before Ianto can pull it away, threading his fingers between Ianto's and bringing them to his lips, and in a gesture a hundred years out of date, he kisses it, a single press of his lips against the palm of Ianto's hand.

 _“Jack, are you listening?”_ Gwen snaps from the other end of the line.

“I'm listening, Gwen,” Jack says and lets Ianto go, watching as he scrambles out of the SUV without a backwards glance.

 

* * * * *

 

Tosh and Gwen are already there when he pulls up in front of the police station. Tosh is absorbed in something on her phone screen, the med kit slung over her shoulder, and Gwen is tapping her foot impatiently. She makes sure Jack can see her before glancing with irritation at her watch.

“Where's our medic?” Jack asks as he slams the door behind him and he sees the slow flush rising up from Tosh's neckline.

It's Gwen who answers him. “He took off after you did. I thought you sent him somewhere.”

Jack doesn't say anything but his glance flickers to Tosh again who is utterly absorbed by whatever is happening on her screen. What little he can see of her face is bright pink and Jack, no stranger to either Tosh or Owen, can take a pretty good guess on where he's got to.

“Tell him from me that if he's not back at the Hub by the time we return he's fired,” he says to Tosh. “And tell him he'd better be sober.”

Tosh still doesn't look at him but she nods, face pointed down to her phone, and he watches as her fingers flicker over her keys.

“Right,” Jack says. “What have we got?”

 

* * * * *

 

Mark Goodson has suffocated, there isn't any doubt of that. He is wide-eyed and grey-tinged on the concrete floor, flat on his back with his head tilted back as if trying to find that last elusive breath. Tosh does the diagnosis, though it's hardly necessary. Jack's seen enough death, has experienced enough death, to recognise it in all its varied forms.

“There's no fingertip bruising on the face, no areas of pallor,” Tosh is saying, and Jack watches from the doorway of the open cell and feels glad he doesn't have to get any closer.

Gwen, standing at the body's feet, nods. “Nothing to suggest that pressure was applied,” she concludes.

“Nope.” Tosh straightens, backing away from the staring corpse on the cell floor, and Gwen, as if not quite believing it, crouches down in her place.

“Yet he suffocated alone in a locked cell,” she says.

“Looks like it,” Tosh says as Gwen leans closer, peers past the corpse's pallid lips.

Then, “Wait a minute,” Gwen says and reaches behind her for the med kit.

 _Vomit,_ Jack thinks. _A junkie choking on his own spew. Please let it be vomit. Please._

She's prying into his mouth, the delicate ends of the tweezers manoeuvring past swollen tongue and uvula and epiglottis, and even though he isn't actually surprised at all, his heart almost skips a beat when she pulls the first red petal from between his lips.

One after the other they are revealed, and the silence of the spectators is a horrified one. Jack can feel his face twist with disgust, with the nausea he can't quite keep down. He wants to turn away, doesn't want to see. Already knew before coming in here but the confirmation threatens to overwhelm him entirely. He sees the faces of fifteen men, dead, and one little girl.

“Never seen anything like that before,” Tosh says and Jack wants to shake her for sounding so cool, wants to grab the two of them and run, run, forget this ever happened, let someone else deal with this for a change. His mind flickers to Ianto, safe for now, far away from here, and he wonders what Ianto would think if Jack just disappeared.

Except it doesn't work that way. He hasn't had that option for years now.

“I have,” he says, and Gwen, Tosh, and the guard all look at him, but he just shakes his head. Even the Daleks are better than this. He can fight the Daleks. He can pick up a gun and shoot at them, and even if the bullets do nothing he can at least feel as if he's making a stand, making a _point,_ letting the world know he's goddamn pissed off. But now, with these things, there's nothing to shoot at. Nothing even to aim for.

“We have to take him,” Tosh says and he nods.

 

* * * * *

 

Owen is simultaneously smug and pissed off at being forced to come back in. There is the smell of sugar and alcohol on his breath, but he seems sober and Jack figures he can't have had time for more than one pint.

They leave him to his autopsy and Gwen and Tosh follow Jack to the conference room where he plays the CCTV in a loop on the screen, an endless cycle of dying and living, like Melissa from the Rift, and Jack thinks of Ianto and his timer and the gutted stopwatch in his office.

“We know the man was a convicted paedophile,” Jack says.

Tosh and Gwen, tired and worried, sit across from each other, both of them watching him, watching the man endlessly dying on the screen behind him.

“He used to hang around schools.”

“But why the petals in his mouth?” Gwen asks.

He shrugs. “Just a bit of fun on their part.”

“You call that fun?” The look she gives him is full of snarling hostility and he knows she's lashing out, needing someone to blame, and he's neither surprised nor upset when her needle lands on him.

“That's the way these creatures like to do things. They play games, they torment and they kill.”

“Why?” And that's Gwen again, trying to find a reason, as if pain for pain's sake wasn't enough, as if power for the sole purpose of having it was a mystery, and he wants to both shake her and hug her for her naivety, as if humanity has never disappointed her, even once. And maybe, he thinks, it hasn't.

“As a punishment, or a warning to others,” he says, not so much an answer to her question but because that's what this feels like to him. It's what it was that time before and now, with the arrival on the scene of a dead paedophile, the coincidence is too much to ignore. “They protect their own. The Chosen Ones. Somehow children and the spirit world, they go together.”

“So how do we stop them?” Tosh asks.

“First we have to find out who they want,” he says, but doesn't add on that that's the easy part. He's already done that once before, almost a hundred years ago, entirely by accident. “And we can't trap them. They have control of the elements. Fire. Water. The air that we breathe. They can drag that air right out of our bodies. Sometimes I think they're part Mara.”

“Mara?”

 _Nightmare creatures, the horrors of a childhood where only a light in the room keeps their grasping fingers away._ “Kind of malignant wraiths. It's where the word nightmare came from. They suffocate people in their sleep.”

Suddenly the phone rings and some tension he wasn't even aware of breaks. Gwen starts visibly and Tosh inhales, a short sharp gasp.

He leans over and answers it. He expects Ianto. He hits the speakerphone and isn't prepared for the answering voice that comes to him from the other end.

_“Jack, it's me, Estelle.”_

_No. No. No._ “What is it?”

_“You were right, Jack. There are bad ones. They've come to me.”_

And just like that, the world ends once again.

 


	59. Monday Night - Jack

In Jack's imagination, time and space are populated by his loves, living on in universes far away, on worlds he's never seen. Estelle was supposed to live forever. In a thousand years he would still be here and he would think of her as something vital, her chestnut hair glinting under a foreign sun, light years away. Away from him, but alive. Always, always alive.

He is the first one out of the SUV when it screeches to a halt in front of Estelle's home. It's dark and it's quiet and in his head he can still hear Tosh's voice from the back of the SUV when she'd said, _“It's stopped. Whatever caused the weather pattern it's stopped.”_ And he remembers the triumph in her voice, the reassurance, that whatever it was it had now gone away.

Jack knows better, of course. He knows why it's stopped. He is ready for it, expecting it, but it doesn't change the fact that when he sees her, open-eyed and utterly still, for a few seconds his entire world stops as well.  _He_ stops, three feet away, staring down at her unmoving form while he tries to figure out where the rest of him has gone. He wonders, not for the first time, if one can actually die of grief.

Owen pushes past him, kneels down at her side and Jack is distantly aware of him checking for breath, a pulse, but whatever is going on in that world it doesn't reach Jack here, it's not happening here, to him. There is another universe where people die, where Estelle is gone.

“Looks like she died from drowning,” Owen says and the words find Jack from a long way away and they drag him back. His whole body lurches forward like something's come unstuck.

“Rest of the garden's dry as a bone,” Owen mutters and rises, steps back, and Jack takes his place, kneels down, and with a hand that isn't steady he closes her eyes because he doesn't want to look at them, he doesn't want to see the accusation in their blankness, the proof of how much he'd failed her. He lifts her but he's too big, too clumsy. She's so small and it's like holding a broken toy. He puts her head under his chin and he holds her close to him, keeping her there, keeping her anchored to him. His arms, surrounding her, will keep the world away.

He tries to remember what it had felt like to hold her when she'd been alive, but the memories are being replaced now with this one and he knows that from now on when he thinks of her it will be like this, of her broken body in his arms, gravity finally given up.

As much as he tries to forget, as hard as he tries to keep his distance, these ones, the ones that matter, the ones that will stay with him a thousand years onwards, are the ones he's never been able to make himself leave.

She's cold. Impossibly cold for having been so recently warm.

“It wasn't your dad who was in love with her all those years ago, was it? It was you.” Gwen says and he becomes aware that she's behind him and Owen is gone.

“We once made a vow,” he says and it's such a relief to say this out loud, to let someone else know what she was to him. “We would be with each other till we died.”

He wonders how many people he can love before it runs out, before he forgets how to. He wonders how many people can love him until there's nothing left in him to love, and he kisses her, her white head, the last bright thing of her, and he puts her down with arms that don't feel right, with a body that doesn't seem to belong to him, and he gives her back to the earth.

Jack pushes himself up and somewhere far away, in another universe, he is trying to cry. He straightens, squeezes his eyes shut, takes a deep breath, and somewhere in there, past the ravaging grief, the ever present fear, he finds control.

“I need a drink,” he says, and he turns around and walks away. Leaves the garden and the house and he gets into the SUV and he drives away, back to the Hub, back home, back to where it's safe.

 

* * * * *

 

Two hours later, Gwen finds him there, sitting at his desk with the decanter half-empty at his elbow.

She doesn't say anything, simply walks in and sits down across from him and waits. He knows what she wants and he knows she's right. These are things they have to know. Things he needs to tell them. He lets the whiskey make it easier, pours himself another glass before he begins and he can tell from the droop of her neck, the wary angle of her head, that she's not expecting to like what she's about to hear.

But she doesn't argue. For a miracle, she listens to him talk, and he tells her about a troop train in 1909, of a group of soldiers who'd gotten just a little bit too drunk, a little bit too reckless. He tells her about a little girl who got in the way of a truck that shouldn't have been driven by a man who shouldn't have been allowed to drive...

He can see her disapproval in the blankness of her face, for the first time she is trying to hide it and he is grateful, but neither does he blame her. It's a long time ago, but that girl is with him still, one of the deaths he will never put aside. He remembers the sickening relief when they'd left that village, the noisy celebration of the fifteen men who'd caused this thing to happen, their voices too loud, their laughter too high. They'd been running from the little girl, bleeding on the ground. They'd been running from her parents, hollow-eyed and filled with despair. They'd been running from the villagers that viewed them with a rage that came out in terrifying silences, long vigils along the roads wherever they went, a hundred faces refusing to let them forget what they did. And Jack, to his shame—one of the countless things he's done wrong—had been just as relieved as the rest of them to finally get out of there.

And he is relieved now to feel the guilt still there, to see the sedated anger in Gwen's eyes and the shame of the accusation that is still there, because it means he hasn't forgotten. Somewhere inside him there is still a soul

Still, he is unutterably relieved when she goes. She doesn't offer him a smile and he doesn't blame her. She's so young, younger than Ianto in her own way, utterly untouched. She expects so much more than the world can ever give her. Jack has failed her mark lifetimes ago, before he'd even left Boeshane, but something in him craves her disappointment because its a precious proof that someone still believes he could be better than he is.

After she goes, he sits at his desk and stares at the glass of whiskey he hasn't touched yet. He can feel himself getting sober again, the world beginning to right itself, and he isn't ready for it yet, isn't ready for sobriety in a world where one more thread of his soul has frayed away, where one more scrap of his humanity has left it.

He picks up the bottle and drains it and as the fire of it warms something frozen inside of him, he staggers out of his office and down to the lift.

 

 


	60. Monday Night - Ianto

It's nine o'clock by the time Ianto makes it back to the hotel. He is cold from the wind and wet from the spray and tired because he hadn't slept and tomorrow he is moving.

There is nothing for him to get ready. He has six shopping bags and a laptop bag and the single suitcase he'd bought when he'd transferred his suits and the handful of books from the Hub. He is, in all essentials, ready to move. The furniture he bought is going to be delivered tomorrow, when he plans on doing the rest of his shopping as well. Food. Dishes. He thinks of the cavernous house waiting for him and he is both dreading his advent and thrilled about it.

He could have gone back to the Hub.

For him, for the life he had been accustomed to leading before it all fell apart, nine o'clock is still early. He thinks of the artefact archive, the paper archive, the regular filing, the coffee machine still uncleaned, his coffee still sitting on the kitchen counter. But he doesn't want to go back. And besides, it'll be easier for him to do what he needs to do at the Hub when the others have gone, when the threat of interruption is past, and with the current crisis Ianto places no dependence on their all being gone for the night.

In the meantime, he settles himself in front of his laptop and works on the other things he needs to do. Emails to Helen and to the botanist, emails to Quintin Lowe—who in spite of himself Ianto has begun to like with his acidic humour and intelligent if caustic observations—and the final report from the FOC regarding the Survivor Fund that he needs to agree to before he can begin acting on it.

Time goes by, as it does. He doesn't realise it's past midnight until he looks up from his laptop, eyes tired and blinking, and finds that it's late.

And he's hungry. He looks at the clock in the corner of the screen but he already knows that it's too late for room service. He considers going down to the bar but isn't sure he's in the mood to be around other people. He shuts the laptop and stands at the window, overlooking the road and the hotel entrance and he watches a taxi pulling away. His eyes follow it as it drives off and then keep going, past the road to the golf course where he stares in the distance to where the clump of trees would be, invisible in the darkness, where the woman from the Rift had been, where Jack had been, where his life had begun to change all over again. He thinks of Flat Holm and the thought of it is both frightening and soothing. Part of him thinks he belongs there. He envisions a house, a small cottage he could make his own. He imagines himself as caretaker of the island, liaison to the outside world. He imagines a life like that, quiet and quietly useful.

But he doesn't know if he could do it. He admires Helen and the others, the strength they have in waking up every day and facing what they do. He doesn't know if he could handle it, a world where he would see nothing but the bad every single day, no one but the damaged. He is broken, he knows, but part of him still craves the whole, if only to stand as witness to the fact that it exists.

Regardless, he tucks the thought away somewhere safe, a possibility, a temptation. He imagines a cat, maybe two. He imagines a library full of books. He imagines a life spent finding things out and the quiet, the safety in which to do these things. It would be a good life. And if he also imagines Jack there, crossing to the island in his boat, ferrying the broken like Charon, if he also imagines standing at the pier and waiting for him, watching him come closer, drawing him in and having him, somewhere safe and far away from the world where they could both forget... _well._

It's twelve thirty and Jack will be alone now, he thinks. Unless something's happened, which it very well might have done. He thinks of Owen in the doorway, the fist flying towards his face. He thinks of Jack appearing from nowhere and he thinks of that too long ride in the SUV when he'd almost said something, anything to break the truce of silence that had descended between them.

And it had been broken, as silently as it had occurred, and part of him had wanted to stay, sitting there with Jack forever, their fingers slotted together and Jack's lips a breath stealing presence against his skin.

But also, he'd been glad to get away, the cowardly part of him grateful to be allowed to run when suddenly it had all quickly become too much. He's been in isolation for too long, has gotten too used to being by himself. He reminds himself that he's going to have to rebuild his routine again, but today had been enough, too much. He thinks of Jack's fingers between his own, how even that had nearly toppled him, and he knows it had been time to leave. He needs to rebuild himself, tighten the defences that over the past month had been ripped apart and pulverised, the stone turned to dust, the iron rusted and beaten and bent. It had taken too short a time for Jack to take him apart with a single touch of their hands. Too long for him to gather himself afterwards, stumbling from the car and onto the pavement. He'd been shaking still when Madog had called out to greet him, the hand that Jack had kissed a tingling, unsteady appendage that had no relation to the firing synapses in his brain. He hadn't said a word when Madog had had to help him untie the boat, though the mason had looked at him quizzically.

He looks again at the clock. Jack will still be there. Almost one o'clock now. If he walks, by the time he gets there, it'll be one thirty. Surely the others will have gone. Surely things haven't come to a head already.

And if they are still there he'll see at once from the monitors in the tourist office. He can simply turn around and leave. None of them will know he'd been there at all.

He is reaching for his jacket when the knock comes at his door. And he knows. He knows who it is. And it feels like it always did in this place, in the room a dozen floors up, the room that had become theirs. It is unreal, a dream, something that's happening outside of whatever universe they usually inhabit. It is an excuse. He opens the door and there he is, Jack, and Ianto doesn't question it, doesn't hesitate. Jack steps forward at the same time that he does and it's a collision when they come together, breathless and thoughtless and violent. They are fingernails and teeth, torn edges jagged and incomplete. The door is kicked shut and Ianto is being pushed back, is pulling Jack with him.

They collapse on the bed, tangled and twisted in each others limbs and clothes. There is the rip of material, the snap of thread, the snarl of something animal and wanting. Ianto tastes blood in his mouth, iron and copper and bright, and he doesn't know whose it is. There is heat on his skin as hands dig into his hips, drag his trousers away, and then cool air and even more heat, more skin that isn't his own, pressing into him, dragging him closer. Jack is growling into his neck, pushing downwards into him and Ianto wants to open himself and open Jack in turn. A knee and a thigh is shoved between his legs, demanding, and he lets himself be pulled apart even as he snaps his teeth down on the skin of Jack's shoulder and he tastes blood and hears the guttural rage of an injured animal snarled into his neck and his own low response as something heavy and hot and too large is thrust up against him, pushing at the entrance to his body where he's never been breached before. He can feel his throat close up with pain, his eyes open wide, but his body isn't listening to him, his legs pulling themselves further apart, his hips pushing up instead of away. He tries to say something but it comes out as a whine and Jack's tongue appears, thrusting at the corners of his mouth to lap it away.

He's aware of fear, of the beginnings of panic flickering at the outer reaches of his awareness, but it's a human fear, the panic of a well-ordered mind being consumed, and the feral thing that is eating it is too strong, too loud against the clamour of rational protest. Enough of it comes through for him to pull away from Jack's mouth long enough to say “I've never—” but Jack bites the words off at Ianto's throat, his teeth closing down on the sensitive skin of a jugular vein and whatever Ianto was trying to think, whatever he was trying to say, is lost in a long groan of capitulation. He pushes himself upwards, finding that pressure, the unbearable pain, and Jack responds by pushing down and for a second his body shuts down, his lungs compress and his heart stops.

“I want you,” Jack groans against his throat and Ianto can only respond with his own growl, his own teeth gnashing and catching the tip of an ear, a tongue darting up to lap at the blood he draws before he feels the tiny wounds closing beneath his administering flesh. He could do this forever, he realises, hurt Jack over and over again and never go too far, tear him apart with teeth and nails and five minutes later do it again.

The pressure between his legs, pressing into his body, is mounting. Dimly, in the part of his brain that is still able to think, he knows this is a terrible idea, knows they could both be carried too far. But mostly he doesn't care. He can feel the beginning of the breach, the wet slide of precum that is allowing them just enough leeway to be able to do this much, just enough that Ianto can feel himself being parted and pushed open, mounted and swallowed whole by the animal that is trying to eat him alive.

Jack's face is pressed into his chest, bent over, his tongue laving at the skin where his teeth have left a row of red, indented skin. He is panting, the sounds nearly human again, and when the words emerge, pushed out through clenched teeth, Ianto almost doesn't hear them.

“I'm going to hurt you,” Jack says.

“No you're not,” Ianto manages except it's a lie. He already hurts, his entire body a conflagration, the whole world on fire starting from him, from the place where Jack is pushing into him, where he is pushing himself onto Jack. “Come _on,”_ he urges and he tightens his hand where it's buried in Jack's hair, the gel crackling between his fingers, the roots dragging against his grip. He thrusts upwards and can feel Jack's breath leave him even as his own lungs struggle past the thing in his throat. “Jack, _come on!”_

And Jack sobs, something breaking, and Ianto can feel it, the bloom of heat spilling into him, spilling over him, wet and blood-warm in the crease of his buttocks, and the slippery stickiness lets him push forward that bare inch more before he can feel something inside of him tighten, gather together somewhere dark and deep. With a swallowing cry it suddenly expands and he is crying, biting Jack's name off of his tongue as he comes in the sticky space between their bodies and all of a sudden the world returns, blinking back into existence around the edges of his vision. His face is wet and he doesn't know what from, and he feels the thousand points of pain coming to breathless life on the cartography of his skin. Jack has collapsed, his body draped over Ianto's, too hot, the sweat and the semen trapped between them.

“She's dead,” Jack says suddenly and his voice is breathless, nearly inaudible above the sound of the blood still pounding through Ianto's head. “They killed her.”

Jack's face is turned away from him, his head draped against Ianto's shoulder, and Ianto doesn't try to look at him but he makes certain that his hands are still on him, his arms still around him, holding Jack there though it's becoming difficult for him to breathe.

“Estelle?” Ianto asks and immediately regrets speaking but Jack only nods, his chin digging once into the bone of Ianto's shoulder.

“We were together. A lifetime ago. We were going to be together till we died.”

Ianto doesn't say anything but he's thinking it and the idea of it is loud in the room between them. _But you did die. Over and over again and she never had a chance._

And haltingly, in a voice dead with exhaustion, Jack tells him. Fairies, Estelle, of soldiers on a train in 1909 and the dead child they'd left behind. He tells him of a fairy ring, of the disappointment in Gwen's eyes, and he tells him, finally, that he'd loved her, that he still loves her, and Ianto understands the thing that Jack doesn't say. That he is afraid. That there are only so many times he can say goodbye and Ianto hears the explanation in the words, the fears left unspoken. _I can't do this again, as much as I want to. I can't lose you too._

So he holds Jack and struggles to pretend he doesn't need to breathe until Jack, of his own volition, rolls off of him and Ianto thinks he's going to go except that Jack only repositions himself, pressing in against Ianto's side, ducking under his arm as if he's already forgotten what he's promised both of them he wouldn't do again. And Ianto lets him.

Hours later, when the first glimmerings of lighter blue can be seen in the navy sky, Ianto wakes up to find himself alone. The bed is still warm beside him though and his stomach and the place between his thighs is a sticky, itchy mess. He sits up, rubbing at his face, and looks at the time. Five fifty-eight. There's a white square propped up next to the glowing numbers with his name scrawled across it in Jacks familiar hand. He opens it, holds it up to the faint light of the city coming in through the window. Feels the catch of breath in his throat, his own fear of things unnamed coming to life in the pre-dawn dark.

 _It wasn't a mistake._ _-J_

 


	61. Tuesday Morning - Jack

He doesn't realise he's forgotten his phone till he's back at the Hub at six o'clock, the chill of the morning clinging to his coat, carrying the smell of the mist with him into his office. And there it is, flashing furiously on the edge of his desk.

The smell of Ianto is still clinging to his skin, his scalp still tender from the fingers that had been dragging at the roots of his hair. He is speckled with slowly healing cuts and bruises, teeth marks and the red drag of blunt nails scraping across his skin. There is dried blood on his ear, on his shoulder, on his neck—his own—and more blood sunken into the cracks of his lips—Ianto's. The pain is a bright string of lights, warm and agitated against his skin, and he can feel it prickling as his skin slowly puts itself back together.

Apart from the superficial, there is a bone deep ache in every limb, and a deeper satisfaction in the heavy, sated sleep he'd found buried against Ianto's side. He thinks of last night, of how easily they could have gotten carried away, of how easily Ianto could have been hurt, and he knows he should regret it, should call him and apologise, but he can't make himself do it. He remembers Ianto's voice, hoarse and low with urgency, his legs and arms dragging Jack down, closer, further, deeper, and he knows that whatever discomfort Ianto felt had been secondary to the frantic need for pleasure.

Jack imagines the marks that will decorate Ianto's skin when he wakes up and he can't help the slow smile that creeps across his face. He is sure, he is absolutely sure, that whatever it had been, whether or not it ever happened again, it had not been a mistake.

He picks up his phone, still smiling softly, and sees Gwen's name flashing at him from the brightness of the screen. Six missed calls, a barrage of urgent texts. He swears softly and slumps into the chair behind his desk, his shirt half open where the buttons have been ripped off, the wool of his coat rubbing at the skin of his shoulder where the sleeve's been torn away. He runs a hand through his hair as he thumbs through the messages, feeling the softness where the gel's been stripped away by Ianto's frantic grasp.

 

_They've been here_

_U there?_

_Jack wherre the hell r u i need u_

_Your bloody fairies have been here_

_Jack I'm freaking out please answer_

_THEY HAVE BEEN IN MY FLAT JACK_

_WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU_

_I can't believe you I can't believe you aren't answering me_

_This is your fault that they're here the least you can fucking do is answer your bloody phone_

_I'm sorry Jack but I'm freaking out here okay just please please please pick up_

_WHERE ARE YOU_

 

And there it is, the world, and once more everything that came before is a dream. He feels it sliding away from him and he lets it go, something he can't stop, a reality that doesn't belong to him. He closes his eyes and the dead weight of Estelle's body is heavy in his arms and in his mind it becomes Rose, Michael, Greg, Lucia. _Ianto._ And he opens his eyes again, banishing the thought. _Never again,_ he tells himself, and he means it, just like he always does. _Never again._

He sends Gwen a text message, thinking she might be asleep, but seconds later a return message appears.

 

_WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN_

 

_**I'm so sorry. Are you okay? Is Rhys?**_

 

_We're fine, no thanks to you. But they've been in our HOME jack. OUR HOME._

 

_**Any damage?** _

 

There's a pause, then a photo pops up in the message screen. A flat, utterly torn apart, and across everything, rose petals strewn like blood.

 

* * * * *

 

The flat is a mess, worse than it looked even on the photo, the destruction spread out over every room, every surface, every object showing signs of desecration. Even the mattress has been slashed, its stratum spread out like the subcutaneous layers of a gutted corpse.

“Where did you stay?” Jack asks. He's tired. What rest he'd gotten, pressed against Ianto's side, feels less than a dream now, standing at ten in the morning on the battlefield of Gwen's flat, her accusations finding him in her silence. He'd waited for Tosh and Owen to get in before coming here, to find her raking up broken branches along with the broken furniture, the rose petals nearly black now.

“A hotel,” she says and her voice is tight.

“I'll take care of the cost till this gets fixed.”

She nods and it's a curt, angry gesture. She hasn't looked at him past a single glance when he'd first shown up at her door.

“In all of my working life,” she says, her voice shaking, every gesture sharp and exaggerated as she kneels on the floor, shoving dead leaves and wilted petals into bin bags. “In all my life I have never had to bring the bad times home with me. I have never had to feel threatened in my own home.” She ties off the bag, her movements almost violent and she rises, stumbling slightly, tense with fear and anger. “But not any more, because this means these creatures can invade my life whenever they feel like it, and I am _scared,_ Jack,” and his name is sliced off the edge of her tongue, the harsh sound of the consonant an accusation. “What chance did Estelle have? What chance do any of us have?” She pauses, forces herself to calm down, and Jack can't even feel any kind of satisfaction or relief that she finally, _finally_ believes him.

This is how Gwen works, he thinks. It's not enough to be told, to see, to know. She has to _feel_ it. She needs the shock to her system to understand that something is important, and he regrets it, that it had to happen this way. But he remembers Gwen standing in a fairy ring, mocking the idea of the creatures who did this, and he's not really surprised that they took their revenge in this form, this blatant and open defilement of Gwen's sacred space. It makes sense, in the way these creatures make sense.

“You said these creatures protect their own?” Gwen is saying, and it's a question.

“Yeah.” He picks something broken off the desk, two halves of something stone, split down the middle.

“You mentioned the Chosen Ones,” Gwen continues. “What are they? How many are there?” and he hears the difference in her tone now. She is asking questions, trying to figure this out, for the first time since this started she is treating it as something real, and when Jack doesn't answer right away she snaps, her patience breaking with an almost audible sound. “Tell me Jack!” she shouts.

“All these so-called fairies were children once,” he says, and he's so tired. He is picking through his mind, trying to remember something useful, anything solid to give to her, but all that comes back to him are fragments of memory that he isn't even sure are his own. “From different moments in time, going back millennia. Part of the Lost Lands.”

“Lost Lands. What?” she snaps.

“The lands that belong to them,” and it feels true even if he isn't entirely sure what it means.

There is a pause and he can feel the anger coming off of her, smell the acrid tang of her irritation mixing in with the fear. She wants answers but he doesn't have any to give her. “What exactly do they want?” she asks and he can hear the effort it's costing her to keep her voice even. “Why are they here?”

“They want what's theirs. The next Chosen One.” He turns around, faces her, and she's so afraid, so angry. She is blaming him and he can't even be upset about it. It might even be his fault for all he knows. He thinks of a girl almost a hundred years ago, nothing but dust in the road. Esme, her name had been. She'd been eight years old.

“Alright then,” Gwen says, and she grabs her jacket from where she'd dropped it over the back of the torn up sofa. “Let's go then. Let's find her.”

“Find who?” Jack says, for a second lost in the sweep of her sudden determination.

“The Chosen One,” she says, and there is iron in her eyes. “Let's stop them, once and for all,” and she sweeps out the door, and just like that Gwen is back, Gwen the chosen one, the one who was made for more. And as Jack follows her out the door he thinks of Esme, eight years old forever.

He wouldn't even mind them so much, he thinks, if he could only fight them. Put a bullet through one of them. See them bleed.

 


	62. Tuesday Afternoon - Jack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hellooooooooo! yes i'm still alive. i'm so sorry i am the worst, especially considering how short this chapter is going to be. however, normal update schedule type thing should resume at this point. also in future, if anyone's ever wondering if i've dropped off the face of the earth, you can check the tumblr blog i have that exists solely for me to complain about writing. it's cey-the-woozle but it's not terribly thrilling so i wouldn't get too excited about it.
> 
> also, i did some rewrites for some previous chapters, namely for small worlds. i hope they're an improvement, but i am a terrible judge of my own writing so possibly not. the good thing is absolutely nothing has changed in terms of plot points and so you don't even have to go back and reread them. i am so kind, i know.
> 
> anyway. without even further ado, here is the next (extremely short i am so so sorry) chapter.

There is a frisson of tension of humming through the Hub and Jack feels it immediately. It's Torchwood in battle mode, the usual disorganisation temporarily pushed aside. It startles him as much as it makes him proud.

When this happens—when the ordinary ramblings of the every day and the fact that they're mostly just a bunch of precocious children is suddenly forgotten—Jack looks around and sees a team and he suddenly realises that they work. They work, in these moments. They're a unit. Owen, Tosh, himself. And now Gwen.

 _And Ianto,_ he thinks, and realises that it's the first time he's looked at this group and included him in it. Has actively noticed that he's missing from it and that his absence makes them less. Less efficient, less strong. Just less.

Tosh and Owen, both bent over their work stations, look up, eyes bright and faces alert, as the cog door rolls back into place. They are ready. All of them are ready. If only he knew what to do.

“Alright, listen up, people,” he says. “We need to find a child. It will probably be a girl so we'll start there. It will probably be in Cardiff, given the recent weird deaths. Gwen, I need you in archives looking for anything and everything to do with children. Children being used, children disappearing, children changing. Toshiko, I need you to keep monitoring the weather patterns. Anything strange, anything even remotely unusual and you sound off, got it? Owen, I need you to scour the news stations. Online reports, social media. Find any kind of reference to unusual activity. Start in Cardiff, work your way out. Go as far out as you need to. I want someone on these things at all times. If you have to go to the loo, tell one of us and make sure it's covered.”

“What are you going to do?” Gwen asks.

 _What is he going to do?_ Desperately think of a way to fix this. Think of something he's never thought of before. Do the impossible and save everyone, save the world, bring back Estelle, make this stop.

“For a start, I'm going to call Ianto.”

“He's in the archives,” Tosh says. She doesn't even look up, her eyes glued to the monitor. Colours flash over her lenses, words imprint their mirror image on her face.

“Ianto's here?” Jack asks.

“Arrived just after you left,” Owen says. “Are we all allowed to show up whenever we want or is that just for people you're currently shagging?”

“When you manage to get here before nine thirty two days in a row then you can come talk to me,” Jack snaps and Owen scowls but says nothing, burying himself in his monitor with the same intensity as Tosh. Jack turns to Gwen who is hovering at his elbow, an expectant look on her face as if any second he will solve this, any moment he will say the formula and the solution will be found, the world will be saved, the day won. “Forget the archives,” he says. “Get on the phone with the police. Get the word out. I want anything even remotely non-mundane to get to us the second it happens. Tell them not to take any chances. This isn't something they can fight.”

“Good thing there's us then,” Gwen says and it's only a little bit sarcastic. He watches her go and then heads to the basement.

He hears Ianto before he sees him, the low murmur of his voice quietly singing something under his breath. It takes Jack several moments to realise it's Boney M and by then Ianto is in sight, his backside just visible between the high stacks, his voice muffled by the shelf he's leaning into.

“Boney M? Really?” Jack says and takes great satisfaction in the noise Ianto makes when his head collides with the shelf above it. He emerges, hair rumpled and face flushed, to glare at Jack.

“What are you doing down here?” he asks less than politely.

“Looking for you. What happened to the furniture?”

“Arrived. I've been looking for anything on kids but there isn't much and nothing unexplained. So I thought I'd try mysterious drownings. You know, like...” he trails off, his gaze flickering away from Jack. “Anyway. I'm pulling what I can but it's not much.”

“Thank you.”

Ianto shrugs. “Just doing my job.”

“Yeah, I know. But still.” And he finds Ianto's gaze and holds it. “Last night,” he says. “Did I hurt you?”

Ianto flushes red but his answer when it comes is short and matter of fact. “Nope,” he says. “Do you want me to check the artefact archive? Make sure there's nothing that could be useful against them?”

Jack deciphers that sentence. _Please leave, and here's a suggestion of how you can do it gracefully._ “I'll do it,” he says though he knows it's useless. He turns to leave but hesitates. “Ianto,” he says, and waits until Ianto reluctantly looks up from the file in his hand. “You know why they killed Estelle, right?”

For a second he doesn't think Ianto will answer. He simply stands, staring at Jack with wide eyes and his lips parted. But then he nods, glances down at the open file and closes it. “You killed their Chosen One. They couldn't kill you, so they killed yours.”

Jack stares at him, silent. He knew, of course. But it's different, hearing it said out loud. Having it said to him. It sounds like it should be an accusation, but it's not. It's a simple statement of fact, information processed and then presented.

“I want you to stay here today,” Jack says abruptly.

Ianto crinkles his brow. “That's fortunate since I don't do field missions.”

“I mean until this is over. Stay in the Hub.”

“The dry-cleaning—”

“I don't care about the dry-cleaning.”

“You will when you've run out of trousers.”

“Ianto, just—please do what I tell you.”

Ianto rolls his eyes, but he nods. “Okay,” he says. “I think you're being paranoid.”

“How else do you think I survived this long?” Jack smirks, but doesn't give Ianto a chance to respond before, with a dazzling grin, he whirls around and walks away. He has no idea how much Ianto knows but it's enough, he suspects, to make answering that question a terrible idea.

 


	63. Tuesday Afternoon - Jack Continued

Ianto is in the conference room when Jack walks in an hour later, standing in front of the large monitor while the blobs on the weather map coalesce and collapse, ecosystems of colour that swirl into brief life and scatter into pixels a second later.

“I want a check on all unexplained deaths in the area,” Jack is saying to Gwen, but he knows it's useless even as he gives out the instruction. He needs to say something though, give some kind of direction, somehow feel in charge. It's a farce and they all know it, but Gwen just nods, plays along like they all do. She doesn't say that they've done this, that Owen's been hacking into hospital files all morning, that Gwen's been on the phone with a dozen different police liaisons and nothing has come up, that nothing has changed since Estelle died, since Gwen's home had been torn to pieces, since Jack had realised that enough was enough. But she's silent, simply nods and lets him lead and he is unbearably grateful for this illusion of control they've all constructed around each other.

“What's the weather forecast for today?” Tosh suddenly asks, and all eyes go to her where she's leaning forward, frowning at the screen. Jack is around the table immediately, bent over her shoulder, trying to make sense of the reams of data strung up before him.

“Long sunny spells,” Ianto says.

Tosh makes a frustrated noise. “It's happening again.”

And on the large monitor, in front of Ianto, the screen begins to change, red pixels coagulating, the weather system springing to sudden and vivid life.

 

**WEATHER SCAN:**

**FOUND: Coed y Garreg Primary School**

**SEVERE WEATHER DANGER**

**ALERT ALL IN VICINITY  
**

 

Tosh is on her feet, her fingers flying. “I can't understand it, it's going crazy,” she says as if this is normal, as if this is something that is natural, something to be explained with shifting winds and cold fronts.

“Just leave it, let's go,” Jack snaps, makes a grab for his coat though he doesn't remember leaving it here, wonders for a brief second if it was Ianto who brought it here, knowing it probably was, and just as quickly pushes the thought from his mind.

_She was your chosen one and look what happened to her._

He is gone without looking back.

 

* * * * *

 

And it's over.

By the time they get there there's nothing left but a school yard that looks as though it's been hit by a hurricane and a steady file of frightened parents with their children, wide-eyed with excitement under protective arms.

Jack had known before they got there that there'd be nothing to find. Half an hour out he'd heard Ianto's voice, low and apologetic in his ear: _“It's over. A 999 call went out but no one was dispatched.”_ But Jack hadn't slowed down. Hadn't started breathing again till he'd screeched to a halt in front of the squat orange brick building and had seen for himself that there weren't any ambulances, there weren't any police.

It was over and no one had been taken, no one had died. And instead of relief, all Jack can feel is fear. _It's not over yet._

Inside the school there is the noisy chatter of chaos reigned in. Children waiting for their guardians being counted and monitored, their names checked off careful lists as one by one they disappear. Everywhere adults are pale and afraid, but the children chatter and laugh, their voices overloud with excitement. Occasionally, the odd break in the sound reveals the sound of someone crying, but they are in the minority, their fear almost drowned by the frenetic activity of their classmates.

_“You're looking for a Kate Masters,”_ Ianto says in Jack's ear even as they round the corner to the main office, all but deserted in the chaos. _“She's the one who made the 999 call and the timetable says she was on duty in the yard when the weather system occurred.”_

“You're a star,” Jack says even as he thrusts a hand out to a man striding past, wearing a suit and looking concerned. “Hello, we're looking for Kate Masters.”

“All her children are gone,” the man snaps impatiently, then turns a suspicious glare on the group of them, looking like anything but responsible parents. “Who are you people? Are you the police? They said they couldn't send anyone.”

“No, we're Torchwood,” Jack says and the man in his grasp almost flinches.

“Right. Kate should be in the staff room. Down that hall to the right. Look, can you let go? I need to relieve Mrs Garner.”

Jack lets him go and the man is off like a shot, leaving only a single quizzical glance behind him.

They find Kate exactly where promised. The nondescript door marked “STAFF” is wide open and they can see her even before they enter, the young teacher huddled under a blanket, surrounded by five of her peers. She is being handed coffee and one dark-haired woman is seated close beside her, an arm tight around her shoulders. It's she who glares when Owen steps forward and makes their presence known, rising immediately to her feet and widening her stance as if looking for someone to attack.

“You're not allowed in here,” she snaps, as if they're unruly students wandering in between classes.

“We're from Torchwood,” Jack says, and though no one says anything several discreet glances are exchanged. “We're looking for Kate Masters?”

“I'm Kate,” the woman with the blanket says and she reaches out and touches the dark-haired woman, still standing defensively at her side. “But you're too late. Whatever it was, it's over.”

“Do you mind if we ask you some questions anyway?”

“You don't have to talk to them,” the dark-haired woman quickly says.

“Actually, you do,” Jack snaps, and at his side Owen sends him an irritated glance before stepping forward.

“Just a few questions,” Owen says, directing the words at them both. “We won't even leave the school.”

“Of course,” Kate says, and once again there is that touch on the dark-haired woman's arm and Jack feels an irrational stab of jealousy that has nothing to do with either woman. Ianto flashes like a thought across his mind and Jack ruthlessly pushes him away again.

He steps back as Kate comes with them, lets Owen take the lead while Tosh strides along on her other side, scribbling the important things in a notepad and Jack is struck with the incongruity of that picture, of Tosh with something so primitive as paper and ink.

“I don't know what I can tell you. It happened so fast. One minute it was calm and sunny and the next it was like a hurricane. We didn't even realise how localised it was until afterwards when we had called our family to make sure they were all okay. None of them knew what we were talking about.” She laughs, a wondering sound without any amusement in it. “That was Sarah, by the way. My girlfriend. She came as soon as I called. I told her not to but I was so scared and—” she breaks off, a hitch in her voice. “I hadn't come out to anyone at school yet. I guess it's too late to worry about that now.”

She stops in the corridor, lost for a second, and around her the team slows as well. Several seconds pass and then she blinks. “Anyway,” she says briskly, and with a shake of her head starts to walk again. “I need to sign myself out. I think I'm ready to go home. What else did you need to know?”

“If you saw anything, heard anything.”

She frowns, shakes her head. “Just the wind and the children screaming. I've never seen anything like it. It was so sudden and then it...then it just ended.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Owen asks.

“No. Two children were almost scared to death but they're okay.” Kate turns left as the corridor reaches a junction. Daylight from the glass doors spill through the hall and Jack realises they've circled back to the front of the building again and he turns at the sound of footsteps, loud in the corridor behind them. Gwen is there, her face wide with terror, and he realises he hadn't even realised she was missing.

“What is it?” he murmurs as she stumbles to a halt in front of him.

“I saw them,” Gwen says in a hoarse whisper.

“And there was little Jasmine,” Kate is saying. “In amongst it all.” Her voice breaks again, afraid, amazed, unbelieving. “She hadn't been touched. The sun was shining down on her.” She slows to a stop and as if knowing that this was for him, that it was Jack who needed to know this, she turns to face him just as Jack overtakes her. “It was...it was like an aura. Like something protecting her.”

“Who's Jasmine?” Jack asks.

“Jasmine Pearce. She's a pupil of mine.”

“Where is she now?”

“We're sending all the children home,” she tells him. “We have to.”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Thanks,” and he means it. He touches her, briefly, gratefully, and he watches as she turns from him and walks away.

At his side, Gwen is tense, her face creased with determination. Tosh and Owen, five feet away, watch Jack with nervous anticipation. It's Gwen who says it, however.

“The Chosen One,” she says.

Jack nods. “Yeah.”

And it's like a breath has been taken, a great heave of oxygen, and they know all of a sudden that they've done it. They're almost there.


	64. Tuesday Afternoon - Jack Continued

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god i'm so sorry i'm such suck. this chapter is as shitty as the last ones, but thank every god this brings us to the last of the actual episode text and i always do a shitty job with those.
> 
> also, i'm ALMOST DONE THIS STORY WOOO!!! only a couple of more chapters i think. i think. no more than that. let's see if i can actually pull this off with any dignity.
> 
> if you've read this far, seriously? just wow. you are a goddamn super star.

The address is already on Jack's phone, the message light blinking before he can say a word.

“Thanks, Ianto,” Jack says into the comm and Tosh is already inputting it into the GPS as he starts the ignition. The SUV snarls to sudden life and Jack presses down on the accelerator, making Gwen swear in the back seat.

 _“Jack?”_ Ianto's voice in his ear is uncertain. _“The weather map's picking up a new reading.”_

“Same address?”

_“Yep.”_

“Keep an eye on it.”

 _“Will do. Jack?”_ There's a pause and Jack can hear his own heart beating. The trees sling past the window and Tosh shouts a direction out from the back barely seconds before the turning is upon them and this time it's Owen who swears at him when the SUV lifts onto two wheels.

 _“Jack?”_ Ianto says into his ear again and Jack doesn't answer. Can't think about him. Can't think about how easily they could get to him. Through the water of the bay, through the air in the ducts. So easily. He shuts off the comm and tries not to think about it. _He's not your Chosen One,_ he tells himself. _He's safe._ And even through his fear he acknowledges that this is probably true. That the taking of Estelle served a purpose. A life for a life. And as he thinks that, he realises that Ianto has probably thought of it, too.

He takes another turning with at least six seconds of warning from Tosh and this time all four tires remain on the ground.

“This is it,” Tosh says. “ETA two minutes thirty eight seconds.”

Too many seconds. To many minutes. He fumbles for the comm at his ear and immediately Ianto's voice crackles into his ear.

_“Bloody tosser.”_

“This is no time for flirting.” He feels the gazes of the other three and ignores them. “You should be safe,” he says and he's proud of how even his voice comes out.

 _“I know,”_ Ianto snaps back.

“Then what're you so pissed off about?”

_“Nothing. Just...try not to die, okay?”_

Jack can feel the grin stretch his mouth and he tries to control it. He's aware of Gwen's eyes, intent in the rear view mirror. “Hey, I lived this long.”

_“Jack.”_

“Don't get maudlin on me, Ianto Jones. We'll see you when this is taken care of. Don't leave the Hub.” _Stupid._ Why not? What possible difference could it make?

 _“I won't,”_ Ianto says anyway and Jack knows that the relief he feels isn't logical. _“ETA thirty seconds, by the way.”_

“Twenty-five seconds and counting down,” Tosh calls from the back seat.

_“Last house on the right.”_

“Last house on the right.”

_“Good luck.”_

“We're here.”

And the road ends in a green wall of young trees and even without Ianto and Tosh Jack would have known the house. There is the roar of wind and the lash of leaves, even as the air around them is completely still. There are the screams of people and the stumbling, terrified flight of a crowd emerging from the backyard, windblown and wide-eyed into the calm of the quiet street. There is the twitch of curtains, front doors opening and people stepping out. Along the street Jack can see more than one person standing in their doorways, faces tense and frightened, phones in their hands, fingers over their dial pads. There is a second in which he makes eye contact with a wide-eyed woman in a tartan dressing gown, her lips suspended on a word, and then he is gone, his coat catching on the corner of the brick wall as he pushes past the people trying to escape and he walks into a wall of wind.

It is ferocious, a physical force, and for a second he is pushed backwards into Gwen before he forces himself forwards again, the team pushing past him, around him. “Go! Go! Go!” he is yelling at people, and Owen is behind him, “Get out!” and through the thinning crowd Jack can see a man, facing off against a creature in the middle of the yard.

It is tall and green-skinned. There is nothing light about it, nothing beautiful. It is monstrous with sharp carnivore teeth and the wings on its back are almost invisible. There is the sound like a horde of locusts and Jack is aware of the team stopping around him, mouths wide with horror as the reality of this thing is brought upon them.

 _“Roy!”_ a woman screams, her voice high with fear, and she surges forward before Tosh is there, holding her back, but she is still screaming, _“Roy! Roy!”_ and her voice cracks with her terror.

The man, Roy, is circling the fairy. He is still holding his beer and his hands are up, a pantomime of a child playing at boxing, and even from here Jack can see the grin on his face and it occurs to Jack that this man thinks this is a game, that somehow this will all stop, the wind will die and the day will become normal and this monster will be revealed to be a trick, or a dream, or a joke.

Jack is aware, barely, of Owen trying to move towards the pair, this central act in the middle of the garden, but he knows, even as he pushes uselessly against the force of the wind, that it is already too late. The fairy lifts from the ground and jumps on the man, and just like that Jack can see the man's face change, the puzzled expression as he realises this is real, too late as two long-fingered hands clasp themselves around his neck, two feet with toes like tree roots, digging into his stomach and his thigh like they are soil. It is too light, almost weightless, but still the man falls backwards, sprawling onto the ground on his back, and Jack knows, even as he pushes against the wall of wind, that there's nothing he can do.

The fairy is chattering, laughing. It lands again, crouches at the man's feet, grinning. It lurches like a monkey over the man's body, straddling his chest, puts a hand on his face and slowly, like a child with a puzzling new toy, pushes the man's head back, it's fingers spread over his nose and mouth.

The woman is screaming in Tosh's arms, but Jack doesn't know who is holding who, the wind something solid and impassable. And like a play, they watch as the fairy moves its hand back, pushes Roy's face to the sky and stares down at his open and gasping mouth, and without a sound, its carnivore teeth dragged back in a gleeful smile, it plunges its hand deep into the man's mouth and its arm slowly disappears, squirming past the clutching throat, impossibly, improbably far.

There is the sound of laughter then, human and real, and Jack sees the little girl watching with a smile on her bright face.

He hardly notices the second fairy until it's in front of him, locust wings beating at a wind that doesn't touch it and all Jack can think of is fifteen men on a troop train leaving Lahore. He throws out an arm in front of Gwen and he feels her hands clutch at him even as the fairy leaps onto him and all he can think is that he was wrong. That Estelle was not the only toll they meant to exact from him for his interference, for his murder, and even if he could fight it he wouldn't. The image of Ianto flickers through his head and he pushes it aside, refusing to give it purchase. There is a hand like a claw around his neck and the other one is in his hair, dragging his head back, pulling his mouth towards the sky, and Jack thinks that this is a new way to die. He hasn't done it this way yet. And absurdly, as he gapes breathlessly at the sky, his body shutting down, waiting for the pain to start, he thinks, _Ianto's going to be so mad._

And then there is the solid impact of a body against his and he is falling. He hits the ground and the fairy, too light, is left like a dandelion floating in the air, and Jack is aware of his throat burning and his lungs expanding against the sudden rush of air, light flaring in startled bursts against his eyes. He heaves, his face against the grass, and smells the choking musk of the soil, can hear the sound of a woman screaming through the ringing in his ears. There is a weight across him and it takes several moments for him to realise that it's Gwen's arm and she is sprawled in the grass beside him. There is a roaring in his ears and he doesn't know if it's the wind or his own blood, pounding against capillary walls, the nerves blasting into anxious life. He looks up and he sees Jasmine, staring at them in disgust. He hears the sound of locusts and the unearthly chatter of the fairies laughing as they fly away, becoming beautiful again as they vanish. He sees Roy, dead, and the smell of rose petals on the air.

He wants to lay there, inhaling the scent of grass and soil until it's over, until there's nothing left to do. But even as he watches, the little girl turns around and with a last glare, walks away. He sees the trees rising up beyond her and he knows he will have to go after her. Gwen's weight is heavy on his back but he pushes himself up anyway.

They are almost alone in the silence as it descends. The wind is gone, as unnaturally as it began. Only the woman is still screaming in Tosh's arms, the team the only other ones left apart from the dead body in the centre of the yard. Jack goes to it, looks down at the cooling flesh and he wonders what this man had done, what crimes he'd committed, what actions he'd failed to perform to warrant this revenge. Jack thinks of a paedophile, of fifteen soldiers laughing in the wake of a child's death, and he forces himself to turn away. _Jasmine._ She is nowhere in sight but there is a hole in the fence, jagged boards broken away. He climbs through them and follows her, stumbling into the trees.

He is aware of Gwen at his heels, the sound of the woman's screams being left behind. The trees are young here, the undergrowth thick and emerald green. It is impossible to be silent but it doesn't matter because they find her easily, standing still with her back to them. She doesn't make a move, either away or towards them, and Jack glances at Gwen who stares just as uncertainly back.

“Do you know you're walking in a forest?” Jasmine says and it's the first words that Jack has heard her speak and they are directed unmistakably to him.

He moves towards her slowly, afraid that like a startled deer she will run, but there is nothing she has to be afraid of. There is nothing this child has left to fear. She turns to him, slowly, and she looks at Jack.

“Well, you are,” she says as if she can hear the challenge in his thoughts, as if the young growth of this suburban grove is a personal argument imported by himself. “It looks like a very old forest. And it's magical. I want to stay in it.”

“You can see this forest?” Jack asks.

And simply, with absolute certainty: “Yes.”

“But it's not here. It's just an illusion, Jasmine.” He is trying to talk softly. He wants her to believe him. He nods emphatically, hopefully. “It is!”

There is the whir of wings. Jasmine shakes her head and he sees it in her face, knows without a word that she is already half gone, refusing to believe him, not _wanting_ to believe him.

“Your friends are just playing a game with you,” he says and he looks at the trees, directs his voice to them. “The real forest can never come back.”

And Jasmine, her child's face already changing into something old, only smiles. “Oh, it can. When they take me to it.”

Gwen crouches down, her face earnest, her voice urgent. “They told you this?”

Jasmine nods wordlessly.

“What about your mother?” Gwen asks. “Don't you want to stay with her?”

Jasmine shakes her head and Jack, remembering the dead man in the yard, wonders again what was done, what hadn't been done for this child while she still had a choice.

The rush of wings hasn't stopped, it gets louder, echoing, and something is coming near. He sees Gwen glance upwards and stumble back and he follows her gaze to see the fairies, green-skinned with carnivore teeth, perched like too large insects, limbs like branches in the trees above. He feels his heart leap and he steps back, feels his coat catching at the undergrowth and clinging to his leg.

“Come on!” he calls, “The child isn't sure!” but he knows it's a lie and Jasmine is already turning to leave him.

“I am sure,” she says and Jack thinks of Estelle dead, of Ianto at the Hub. He should leave this. He should let this go. Let the world be saved by doing nothing at all.

But he is also aware of Gwen at his side, of Tosh and Owen not so very far away, and even as he thinks that, he is moving forward, pulling Jasmine back, pulling her back to him, and she struggles and cries out but he just holds her tighter. “Leave her alone! Find another Chosen One!”

 _“Too late,”_ the fairies say, their voices echoing, the whir of wings loud and agitated, the leaves moving on trees that are too young. _“She belongs with us.”_

“The child belongs _here!”_

_“No. She lives forever.”_

“Suppose we make her stay with us?”

But it's Jasmine who answers him this time and the words, their words coming from her mouth, makes him go cold. “Then lots more people will die.”

“They tell you that?” Gwen demands.

“They promised,” Jasmine says.

 _“Come away, O human child,”_ the fairies sing and it is terrifying, these human words taken so easily for their own.

“Next time,” Jasmine says, “they'll kill everyone at my school,” and she looks pleased. “Like they killed Roy, and that man, and your friend.” She struggles against Jack's grip.

“How do you know these things?”Gwen says, but Jasmine ignores her.

“If they want to they can make great storms, wild seas, turn the world to ice, kill every living thing.” She pushes angrily at Jack's arms. “Let me _go!”_

This is the end, Jack knows. The decision he was always meant to make, though it was never his decision at all.

“The child won't be harmed?”

“Jack,” Gwen gasps. “You can't—”

 _“Answer me!”_ he yells, cutting her off, angry at her, at himself, at these creatures so far beyond his ken. “She won't be harmed?”

 _“We told you, she lives forever,”_ the fairies say.

“Dead world,” Jasmine snarls. “Is that what you want?” and Jack pulls her around, aware that he is being too rough, that he has lost.

“What good is that to you? There will be no more Chosen Ones!”

And when Jasmine answers him, he knows she's already gone. _“They'll find us,”_ the fairy says. _“Back in time.”_

He stares at her and his hands fall away. He touches her face and looks at her but there are tears in his eyes and already she is a blur.

He looks away.

And he lets her go.

And in a beating of wings, the light returns and the fairies become beautiful again.

“Jack, no!” Gwen cries and she lurches forward, making a grab for Jasmine and Jack stops her, drags her backwards, pulls her back into him and keeps her there. “You asked me what chance we have against them,” he snarls. “For the sake of the world _this_ is our only chance.”

Her face is blank, with shock or grief. He can't read it, he doesn't want to, and when she pulls away from him he lets her go. He doesn't care. He stares after Jasmine, watching her walk away, and when she stops and turns back she is smiling and she is radiant.

 _“Thank you,”_ she says, the fairy says, and still Jack can't meet her eye though the fairies are laughing and there is a light beyond the trees, like he's seen sometimes when he's died.

And when the mother appears, stumbling through the trees, Owen and Tosh at her back, Jack lets her go, watches her call for her child who doesn't even look back at her. There is only light. And then there is nothing.

 


	65. Tuesday Afternoon - Ianto

The Hub is empty in a way it never was when Lisa was here. When Ianto had sat and waited the hours for Jack to disappear, or reappear, when he'd ticked the routine off on his mental list, listening to the sound of the engines and the pumps and the ducts, the electricity almost audible as it hummed along its copper lines, filling the world. He sits in the conference room long after the comm has gone dead. Watches the alarm-red pixels on the weather map scattering as suddenly as they had gathered and he waits, in vain, for the crackle in his ear that is the precursor to relief, to reassurance, that whatever else happened, whoever else has died, Jack is coming back.

To him.

_No. Don't think like that._

He thinks about Tosh instead, with her silent intensity and her quiet wry humour that she rarely ever lets anyone see. He thinks about Gwen with her inexplicable ability to charm everyone but him, of how she had shown him, without a word, just how insignificant he really was. He thinks about Owen, angry and acidic and unrepentant, and realises that part of him is almost jealous of the sour little medic's blatant disregard for everything and everyone else, his ability to turn off all empathy, all sympathy, and simply exist.

It occurs to Ianto, somewhat startlingly, that part of him might actually mind if the others didn't return either. Tosh especially, perhaps, but the other two as well with their unmatched talent for making him hate himself, almost as much as he hates them for their brash, self-absorbed, inconsideration for the lesser beings of the world, a category he's spent his life inhabiting and that he can't now fathom ever leaving. He sits in the conference room and finds, strangely, that he's worrying. He hadn't thought he'd ever worry like this again after Lisa died, this all-consuming fear for someone else.

He stands abruptly, shedding the comm onto the conference room table and turns around with only a last glance at the weather map on the screen as a sop to his duty, gives it one last chance to tell him something, but it doesn't, it remains as it is and he leaves.

He goes down, as he always does, past the paper archives and the artefact archives with its stacks and piles still waiting to be sorted. He goes past, goes down, further until he is at a familiar door in a familiar corridor, the chain sagging with the weight of the padlock in its middle. Lisa's room. Empty now. The Hub is both quieter and louder down here. The hum of the constant machinery is louder, the faint sound of the bay pounding against its walls suddenly present, but the whirr of computers is silenced, the rush of the water tower gone, the sounds of industry and of other people missing, no phones and no foot steps, no alerts beeping and programmes running, measuring, calculating. The faint sounds of action are gone and in their place is the noise of something living, of beating hearts and rushing blood, of the roar of oxygen in enormous lungs. It's unutterably soothing and Ianto can feel himself calm, can feel the spiralling of the world slow into focus. He leaves the door where one of his worlds had ended and continues along the corridor to his closet, now empty, and without hesitation he goes inside and sits down where his mattress used to be and he breathes. And slowly, quietly, his body syncs with the one around him.

He doesn't realise he's fallen asleep until he wakes up again and for a second he is in a panic, terrified that Lisa's called out to him and he's missed it, but it only lasts until he looks at the empty closet around him and his mind registers the cold damp of his clothes and the ache of freezing concrete in his bones. His skin is chill to the touch but for several minutes he doesn't move, curled up into a ball on the floor, his bones and muscles aching, and he thinks about Lisa.

Of dusky hair, smooth and textured against the palms of his hands. Of dark eyes, warm and deep, watching him, understanding even when he didn't understand himself. Of soft skin that smelled like the sun, like the coconut oil she used, like the vanilla of her perfume. The sweet taste of the lip gloss that she knew he loved, how he would kiss her laughingly, messily, just so she would have to reapply it and he could do it again. He thinks of the sadness in her eyes when he'd stopped coming home at nights, barricaded by his own obsession in the lower levels of Canary Wharf, finding everything there was to find, stumbling over names and information he had never imagined possessing, never imagined existing. The obsessive search for more, to dig deeper, to discover further all the secrets that ordinary people didn't know, until he himself had faded into the reams of data, becoming something greater, something as great as the hidden things he'd found, the stagehand sweeping aside the curtain and revealing the universe. And in that moment, part of the universe. 

He thinks of  _that_ morning, coming home to shower and change before going back, to find her at the kitchen table, almost invisible in the dimness of the dawn, her eyes huge and round with anger and with sorrow and he'd known, then, that in his rush to become part of the greater universe, he'd forgotten that here, with Lisa, in the world of her eyes, he was already part of something huge.

They had made love that morning, both of them crying and afterwards, both of them smiling. They had lain together in their bed and created something small, but something infinitely wonderful. It was the beginnings of forgiveness, the beginnings of a promise. He had sworn with words and without that he would be better and she had smiled and told him, “We'll see,” and he knew that she would, that he would show her, and he would never disappoint her again.

And he had, of course. But neither one of them could have known that it was almost inevitable. That between the two of them, he had always been the weaker, and when he had found her, broken and bloodied in the pieces of the world, he had listened to the plea of the animal, to survive, instead of the deeper mercy of the human, looking for nothing more than to be free. He had dragged her, slipping and falling in the detritus of a collapsing universe, and sought, impossibly, to do both.

It was inevitable that he fail her. It was simply the way he was built. He was the stagehand, sweeping aside the curtain. He had never been meant to be the one revealed.

He tries to think back to those days after Lisa was killed, after Jack had killed her, but he finds that it's too much of a blur, lost in a haze of old fear and hunger, of sleeplessness and nightmares, of blood and pain and the harsh mercies of Jack Harkness forcing him back to life. He couldn't have said where that hostel was that he had retreated to, that stained mattress where he had crawled off to die or live or exist. He could find out, but his mind shies away from the possibility and he thinks that this is the first time he's ever deliberately avoided seeking out a piece of information, especially one so tantalisingly lost.

And it's as he's climbing out of the jagged hole of his memory that the first clear image comes to his mind: Blue eyes, hard and cold and filled with rage and grief, so completely different from Lisa's, staring at him from above, a water-stained ceiling at its back.

They'd both been so angry, filled with so much hate, and yet even then, like the glimpse of water through impenetrable trees, there had been the slightest edge of bright relief.

Even then, Ianto realises, even then he'd wanted Jack to find him. And Jack had.

It seems like forever, that Ianto has always known, and yet even now curled in a concrete closet in the pulsing veins of his prison—his home—he can't say it. He won't. That edge, so bright and hopeful, has turned into an ocean, far too deep to fathom. Ianto stands at the edge of it, the forest at his back, and for seconds, brief seconds, contemplates going in. But the glittering surface, all light, is hard as diamonds and beneath, cold and unforgiving, there is the dark.

And Ianto steps back. Turns away from the water and, without a backwards glance, slips back into the trees.

 


	66. Tuesday Afternoon - Ianto Continued

Upstairs, it is quiet. But there is the awareness of other people in a silent room, and Ianto knows, with a sudden ratcheting of both tension and relief, that he is not alone. And sure enough, as he steps up into the main Hub, his skin slowly warming as the damp is pushed away, he is met with Owen, furiously flinging his bag over his shoulder and stomping away as the Cog door rolls back and the alarm blares out its warning. He is angry, but Owen is always angry, and Ianto, watching him go, isn't sure which reason among the many he'd prefer to hear.

Only when the door shuts again and the alarm goes silent does Ianto become aware of the sound of drawers being slammed shut and things being slapped down too hard on a desk. He follows the noise and finds Gwen, packing her belongings in her purse, sorting with unnecessary vigour through the mess of papers on her desk.

She looks up as he approaches and he reads the pinched lips, the smouldering rage in her stiff features, the way her eyes turn down when she's angry about something she thinks has nothing to do with her. For a second they look at each other, their eyes meeting over the separating distance, and Ianto can see the moment she dismisses him and she turns back to what she was doing.

“Where's Tosh?” he asks.

She glances at him, as if surprised to see he's still there. “Left,” she says. “Didn't want to be anywhere around our fearless leader any longer than she had to.”

He's silent, digesting this. He knows, in that moment, exactly what happened.

“Where's Jack?” he asks.

“Don't know. Don't care.” She doesn't bother looking at him this time, slams the last drawer shut on her desk and swings her bag over her shoulder. “I may or may not be back tomorrow,” she says and finally looks at him again, her gaze challenging, daring him to say something, but he just watches her with a blank face, carefully impassive, and after a second she snorts her disgust. “He's not what you think he is,” she snaps at him. “You don't know what he's done. You think he's something great, but he's not.”

He doesn't say anything, his expression unchanging, and he sees her eyes narrow as she takes a step towards him.

“You want to know? You want me to tell you just how wonderful your leader is? He gave up a little girl to those...those _monsters_. A _child._ Because it was _easier._ Because he couldn't be bothered to fight. Her mother was right there, saw it happening, and you know what Jack did? What your oh-so-great leader did? _Nothing._ He watched her go and did _nothing._ So you know what, next time he shags you you can think about that.” And with that last word, laden with poison, she turns around and leaves and Ianto watches her go and in that moment all his anger towards her, all his resentment, is gone. He realises with a startling clarity that however much Gwen might mean what she said, however genuine her anger at the situation they had found themselves in, whatever choices Jack could or could not make, that last rage-filled barb had shown him what has never occurred to him before: Gwen is jealous. Of _him._

The very idea is startling in its simplicity and its obviousness and for a brief, glowing second, he holds it to himself before discarding it completely, along with the last of his delusions and the last of his anger towards her.

She is jealous of something that doesn't exist.

But it helps, transforms his feelings from resentment to something closer to pity and— _yes—_ scorn. It's small, but it helps. He goes to the kitchen and then after, he goes to find Jack.

He finds him exactly where he had expected, seated behind his desk, his head bowed and staring at something cupped between his hands. Without knocking, Ianto goes inside and puts the coffee down near Jack's right hand.

Jack doesn't look up and he doesn't say anything. Ianto, hesitating, doesn't know if he should stay, but remembering his lately made resolution, after another second given up to wavering, he turns to go.

And as always, in a battle of silence, Jack loses.

“They told you,” he says, his voice flat without any expectation, and Ianto stops and turns back, seats himself on the chair across from Jack and waits for him to look up.

Jack does after a second, his blue eyes exhausted and something in them so deeply wounded that for a second Ianto has to look away, overcome with memories of Lisa dying in a steel frame inside a skyscraper a hundred and fifty miles away. From the other side of the desk, Jack gives a single bitter laugh.

“You too?”

Ianto, realising his mistake, forces himself to look up again, but Jack's already returned his gaze to the object in his hands, his fingers tightening on it convulsively.

“No,” Ianto says simply and is rewarded by a flash of blue eyes, raising to his own in surprise. “What happened?” he asks then, and Jack stares at him for a second, as if he's never seen him before, and then with a flicker of lids he gives a snort and glances away again.

“I let them take her,” Jack says determinedly, and then, his voice rising, his shoulders hunched, he spits out, “I _had to.”_

“I know,” Ianto says. “Tell me what happened.”

And Jack does, with a minimum of words, never quite managing to meet Ianto's gaze. He tells the story and Ianto listens and he hears the things that Jack doesn't say and when it's over, when Jack still doesn't look at him, Ianto says, “You're upset because she saw it happen.”

Startled, Jack looks up, a question in his face, and Ianto says, “Gwen. You didn't want to fail her. You already knew you couldn't stop them.”

“I thought I could.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How could you have stopped them?”

Jack frowns, a flicker of irritation running across his face. He stands up abruptly and walks away to the window overlooking the main Hub, staring down at the empty work stations, his back to Ianto. For several minutes there is silence and then, obeying an instinct, Ianto rises as well, goes to Jack and without so much as a word slips his hands around his waist and holds him. For a heartbeat, brief and stuttered, there is nothing, and then, like a child, Jack turns, buries his face in Ianto's shoulder and starts to cry.

Ianto holds him, feels the shudders running through that body, so familiar now against his own. He holds him and listens to the wracking sobs, torn from something deep and buried. He holds Jack and lets him cry until after too long, not long enough, the sobs turn to hiccups turn to sighs, and the pressure on Ianto's neck turns to lips kissing their way up the column of his neck, over his jaw until they find his own lips and Ianto lets it happen, gives this to Jack and to himself, because even without the salt of Jack's tears Ianto can taste the goodbye.

“Please,” Jack murmurs against his lips, and Ianto lets himself be guided to the sofa, lets himself be pulled down and overwhelmed by hands, by lips, by the soft heat of another body, and he thinks of how easy it would be to let himself drown in this, how easy to let himself fall, but the brightness is only inches deep and he's terrified of what he'll find underneath, of what he won't.

It's over in too short a time, both of them clumsy and graceless as they grapple under clothing, grasping at each other impatiently, their moans noisy in each others mouths, against each others necks. They are pressed close together on the narrow couch but even that is too much space, and Ianto finds himself grinding helplessly against Jack, attempting to burrow in deeper, as if the barrier of atoms and molecules doesn't exist, and Jack, arms clutching tight around Ianto, whimpers his answer back.

And afterwards, sated and shuddering, their eyes shut against the reality lurking inches away over the edge of the sofa, Jack sighs and presses a last kiss against Ianto's face, and says, “Thank you.”

“Jack,” Ianto says, because there's nothing else he can say without welcoming the world back and he's not quite ready yet to do that.

“Did I hurt you?” Jack asks softly, the question coming out of nowhere. “Last night, I mean.”

It takes Ianto a second to remember what Jack is talking about, and when he does he shakes his head, his skin rubbing against Jack's at the motion.

“No. I already said.”

“I was worried. I wasn't thinking.”

“Neither was I. It was good. I wanted you to.”

“I wanted to.”

There's pause. “Well then,” Ianto says and he feels Jack chuckle, deep and low against their bellies pressed tightly together.

“Well,” says Jack, drawing the word out with a smile in his voice. “We could always try again.” And just like that the world is back, breaking the flimsy barrier of sofa and skin and Ianto, his throat closing down on the words, pulls away.

“Ianto?”

Ianto doesn't answer, can't. He stands, pulling his clothing straight, fastening buttons and zip and belt, tugging his tie into order and smoothing it down the front of his chest and tries to ignore Jack's eyes, pinning him from behind. He goes to the desk and picks up the coffee he had brought, cold now, and drinks it anyway.

A hand appears, a slight pressure against the small of his back, and in spite of himself Ianto leans into it before pulling away.

“I can't do this,” he says, the words coming out, cliched and meaningless but true nonetheless.

“Do what?”

Ianto doesn't say anything. Doesn't know what to say. His faces twists into a grimace and he gestures, a wordless, helpless fluttering of his hand. _This. Us._ _Falling in love. Or not falling in love.  
_

There is a silence and Ianto turns around, forcing himself to face Jack, and is just in time to see the quick shuttering of features, the sudden pain pushed determinedly away.

“Can't be with a child-killer after all?” Jack says easily, too easily, and Ianto isn't fooled.

“You didn't kill her. She wanted to go.”

“She was a child. She didn't know what she wanted.”

“She knew. The man in the jail cell was a paedophile you said. The soldiers, your soldiers, they got drunk and killed a girl.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Maybe there's a reason the fairies choose who they do. Maybe there's a reason they took her away.”

Jack is quiet and Ianto watches him, watches the anger darkening his face, the protest trying to rise before being tamped back down.

“And Estelle?” Jack bites out finally.

Ianto hesitates. “You know why they killed Estelle.”

“Then say it.”

“She was your Chosen One.”

“So you're saying I killed her.”

“They killed her, Jack. But they killed her because of you.”

For a second Ianto thinks he might have gone too far. The despair that suffuses Jack's face is a far cry from the anger he was expecting and Ianto has to restrain himself from reaching out, from saying he didn't mean it, that he doesn't mean any of it and they should just stop fooling themselves and go to bed. But in another second, Jack's control is back, and he barks out a bitter laugh, moving away from Ianto to sit back behind his desk. “You're not very good at this pep talk thing.”

Ianto is quiet for a moment. “What do you want from me, Jack?” he asks softly.

Jack shrugs. “I don't know. What can you give me?”

So simple really, and Ianto tries to ignore the feeling of his heart breaking inside him. “Right now?” he says. “Nothing.”

Jack just stares at him and for a second Ianto is afraid he will actually call him out on this lie, but then Jack looks away and the moment passes and just like that the universe turns onwards, worlds ending in its wake.

“I guess that's it then,” Jack says, and Ianto can only nod. He is still holding the coffee cup in his hand, the porcelain cold against his palm. He puts it down, carefully, its contents lukewarm and half gone, but it doesn't seem right to take it away when he had brought it for Jack in the first place.

And sure enough, Jack reaches out and takes the half-filled cup, and in a single swallow he downs it before holding the empty cup out once again.

“Do you mind a refill before you go?” he asks and on his face there is the same self-deprecating grin that is always there, the same Jack Harkness, as if nothing had happened at all.

Ianto, looking at that face, realises for the first time just how hard that diamond surface is.

He takes the cup and he smiles, his own smile, polite and shuttered and faintly amused. “Of course, sir,” he says, and for the briefest moment there is a flash of genuine humour in Jack's gaze, and with a last nod Ianto turns away.

“Ianto, wait.”

Ianto stops, looks back. Jack is holding something out, something curled between the fingers of his right hand. Ianto holds out his own hand and after a second something is dropped down to weigh warm and metallic against his palm. He doesn't know what he was expecting but it's not this, a stop watch, battered and scratched with an old chain slightly oxidised trailing from the ring at the top.

Ianto looks quizzically at Jack.

“I found it in the office when I was clearing everything out," Jack says.

Ianto frowns, trying to understand the thought process behind this bizarre gift and all at once he thinks of a night spent on the deck of a pitching boat, his phone clutched in fingers stiff with cold and slippery with sea water, trying to keep the worst of the water away from the expensive device clasped against his chest. He thinks of the manifold horrors of that night and strangely all he can conjure is the memory of Jack's call in the middle of the night, asking for his help.

“Thanks,” he says, not looking at Jack.

Jack gives an easy shrug. “Fair trade for a cup of your incredible coffee,” he says with a glinting grin, and Ianto rolls his eyes, pulling a last laugh from Jack before he leaves the office.

He goes downstairs, feeling strangely light, his shoes tapping against the metallic rig, this sound of humanity blending in with the whirr of computers, the rush of the water tower, the sounds of industry, alerts beeping and programmes running, measuring, calculating. It is life, or something very like it.

In the kitchen, he hums as the water in the coffee machine slowly heats, and as he waits he feels the faint vibration of his phone, tucked in against his leg. He pulls it out and sees the flash of the message alert, sees Jack's name pop up, and he raises an eyebrow as he opens it.

> _It's on you, Ianto Jones. I'll wait._

Ianto stares at it, wondering why that phrase sounds familiar. _It's on you, Ianto Jones._ And it comes to him in a flash, in Jack's voice, distanced by the background buzz of a voicemail: _It's on you, Ianto Jones. Just know that. This isn't the job. This isn't Torchwood. When—if—it happens, it'll be you and me. That's it._

_It's on me,_ Ianto thinks, and something certain lodges in a corner of his mind, unshakeable. _When—if—it happens._ He grins. He can't help it. And on the counter the coffee machine starts to roil.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IT'S DONE GUYSS
> 
> wow. okay that turned out way longer than i expected. my lovely humans, thank you all so much for sticking it out with me through my good chapters and my really really bad ones. you're all heroes. like wow. this thing is long.
> 
> anyway, in case you are wondering, this is not the intended end of this universe. i have plans to keep doing torchwood fics set within this universe. they'll all be "following canon" except obviously i'll be making the whole thing up, but i'll be making it up with the intention of keeping it for the most part workable within the source material (and i'm only talking about the tv show when i say the source material, though i'll be keeping the extras from the torchwood site in mind as well. i haven't read the novels nor listened to the audios so i'm not including information from those in my headcanons.) i'm not sure when i plan to start the next one so don't ask me, i'm the worst at planning anything. all i know is that my summer is always stupidly busy, so the halcyon days of february and march are, alas, over. the cats take over my life now and because they are cats we must all bow to their superior wills. i have no idea what the series will be called yet because i am ass at titles but if someone has a brilliant idea feel free to let me steal it from you, because i am like that. aw yiss.
> 
> anyway. thank you, all of you, my regular commenters and my occasional commenters and my non-commentersand my kudosers, you're all amazing.


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